


John's Apartment

by empty_battlefield



Series: A Slice of Sadstuck [9]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Apartments, Aromantic, Aromantic Asexual John Egbert, Asexual Relationship, Asthma, Earth C (Homestuck), F/M, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Homelessness, Hopeful Ending, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Minor Character Death, Not Sadstuck, Nursing, Other, POV Karkat Vantas, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Past Relationship(s), Pneumonia, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Sadstuck, hospitality, inhaler, johnkat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2018-09-25 22:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 54,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9850487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empty_battlefield/pseuds/empty_battlefield
Summary: (a dollop of implied johnkat for the soul)After inhabiting Can Town, Karkat and John sort of went their separate ways, living in different apartments with different people.But when Karkat's roommate kicks him out and he finds himself homeless and alone--John just can't resist lending a hand to an old friendleader. And when he finds that Karkat has pneumonia--he offers to let him stay until he's back on his feet again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> John and Karkat = 21 yo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7-19-18 Edit: John's Apartment now has cover art!! ^u^

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153224031@N02/43518383091/in/dateposted-public/)

Karkat Vantas forced his legs to move across the pavement of the dank and dusky street. The pouring rain had long soaked through his clothes, and he felt like his freezing feet were carrying oceans in his Converses. The shops and what not loomed over his head as he made his way down Can Town Main Avenue. He had no destination in mind. 

He grimaced but kept moving. 

He heard the blue car rolling against the wet asphalt before he saw it. He quickly steered away from the sidewalk—he'd seen enough characters in movies get splashed by cars racing through puddles—that he’d learned not to trust the curb too much. 

The car did not rush past. Karkat refused to look at anything but the sidewalk below him as he heard the tires crawling, slowing up as they approached him. 

"Karkat? Is that you?"

Karkat finally turned, and saw John Egbert's face in the window. He looked visibly surprised, mouth parted with his rather goofy overbite exposed. "What are you doing out here? It's pouring rain."

"You think I haven't noticed? Yeah, no shit, it's pouring rain."

John laughed and said, "What I meant is that you ought to stay inside. Why aren't you in your apartment?"

Karkat stifled a wet cough. "Terezi and I had a fight," he said briskly. "And she threw my ass out."

"Oh," John said with an air of surprise. "Well, maybe we could hang in my apartment—at least until she cools off? Then you two can go make up."

"I don't think this is getting through to your fried thinkpan," Karkat said like acid rain. "We're never going to _make up._ She kicked me out for good."

"Hop in anyway," John invited with a cheerful wave of his hand. "Maybe you can call her later."

John obviously wasn't getting it, but Karkat yanked open the passenger door and plopped into the seat anyway. He was already planning what kind of shit he would have to pull while begging Terezi to take her poor ol’ roommate back. A dark puddle seeped into the seat from Karkat's soaking wet jeans. John either didn't notice or didn't mind. He just began driving.

"Can we turn the heat up in here? It's f-fucking freezing."

"Sorry—it's on as high as it'll go," John replied apologetically. "You kinda sound like you're shivering."

"No s-shit! It's this Earthly torture device you c-call _winter,_ John," Karkat reminded him sarcastically. "I've been freezing as all f-fuck for the past three days."

John threw on his brakes a little suddenly, and the two were jerked sharply forward. Karkat grimaced as his seatbelt locked across his chest and left him gasping for air. 

"John, what the hell?!"

John slowly turned his slowly head to face Karkat. He drew out in a low voice, "You've been homeless for three days? Where have you been living since Terezi kicked you out?"

Karkat shrugged. "I don't know, like—I've been at work most of the day—I was eating breakfast at the coffee shop, and what not. I mean, Tez isn't batshit crazy enough not to have thrown my wallet out behind me."

John started the car again, and Karkat felt the car pull into motion with a little more urgency. All that could be heard was the whirring and rattling of John's junky motor. Karkat kept looking over, but John kept his eyes fixed on the road, blinking often behind his glasses. 

John pulled into the small parking lot at the base of his apartment building. The inside of the elevator was silent as they ascended.

Karkat asked quietly, "Hey, John, you aren't pissed at me—are you?" 

John swallowed but did not look over. "I'm not pissed. It's just—you've been on the street for three days and didn't even call me."

Karkat's face scrunched in confusion. "Why would I have called you?"

John let out a brief sigh as the elevator doors mechanically trudged open. "I don't know, like—I could have helped you. I mean, geezus, if you were having problems with Terezi before, you could've called me, but you just—didn't. I feel kind of bad," he concluded guiltily.

"Well, I'm sorry I didn't come _groveling_ to the feet of someone I haven’t talked to for a half-sweep," Karkat chuckled darkly. 

John fumbled with the key in the lock. His breath hitched, in a way that suggested he might have wanted to say something. "It's—fine, I guess," he said airily. He sighed as he shoved open the door to his apartment with the side of his shoulder. 

But John turned around smiling—throwing his arms up in a welcoming gesture. "So welcome to my humble hive! Ain't that what you Alternian trolls call it, hmm?" 

"Yeah," Karkat said passively.

"I hope it's warmer in here than it is in the car," John dabbled. "You can take a shower first—the water in this stupid building should still be hot."

"Alright."

Karkat shut himself into John's bathroom and carefully placed his chilly clothes and sopping wet shoes in a dripping pile on the tile floor as he took them off. He stepped into John's shower and turned the knob the hottest it could go. 

A few minutes after getting in, Karkat froze in the steaming water as he heard the doorknob turn loudly in his ears. "Egbert, don't you dare come in here," Karkat shouted above the roaring shower water. 

"Relax, Karkat, I'm not looking," Egbert said with a giggle. "I'm just getting your wet stuff to put in the dryer. I got you some of my clothes, they're on the sink."

Karkat growled as the door closed again. He almost lamented having to get out—the steaming water was so warm and also did a great job clearing out the uncomfortable congestion in his chest. But he wasn’t enough of an asshole to skyrocket John's water bill, so he finished up quickly. A men's razor was placed deliberately atop the as-promised pile of folded clothes on the sink. Karkat laughed at the thought of John even owning one, seeing as he grew hair on his face like a sphinx cat. But Karkat took the chance to finally be clean shaven again. He put on the warmly dry boxers, gray sweatpants, blue sweatshirt and thick socks that John had fetched for him, and stepped back out into the living room.

"Egbert, this is one of your pranks, isn't it?" Karkat dragged his feet as he shuffled nearer to the kitchen counter where John was eating and swinging his legs at a barstool. 

He looked up from his bowl of pasta and laughed a bit through bites of food. Swallowing, he said, "I guess so, huh? It's the thickest clothes I got. It just makes you look kind of puffy."

"Kind of puffy? I look like a fucking cloud."

He smiled. "You can finish off the macaroni, if you want. It’s in the fridge." John shoveled another forkful of squiggles into his mouth.

Karkat opened John's fridge, and a cold blast of dry air hit him in the face. It was an effort to remove the container of leftover macaroni from the top shelf. He nuked the rest of it and ate it straight out of the Tupperware. 

Karkat broke the silence as the two sat across from each other. "So I'll bet Vriska's gonna be pissed you took me in, huh?"

"Uh, no," John admitted awkwardly, "Vriska doesn't live with me anymore."

"What? No, why?"

"Well, she apparently started having a thing with Eridan again..." John trailed off absently. "Like a blackrom thing. I told her when we got together that I wouldn't be okay with her having two partners, but she still acted like it wasn't a big deal. So I let her move in with him." 

"When the hell was that!?"

John scrunched his face a little, glasses budging a bit on his freckled nose. "Maybe four months ago?" he guessed. He fumbled with his fork trying to stab another macaroni, and Karkat couldn't help but feel sorry for John. 

"That sucks," he said as he watched John eventually get the piece into his mouth.

John swallowed and gave his signature buck toothed smile, red sauce stuck between his crooked teeth. "It's fine though. I've definitely gotten used to it being a lot quieter now!" A laugh forced itself through John's throat, and Karkat returned him a nervous smile, chewing his noodles mechanically. 

Karkat quickly finished eating and so did John. Karkat got up to rinse out the Tupperware—but John took it from him, smiling with the sponge in his hand. 

"I got it."

"John..." you begin as you watch him wash the red sauce off the bowl. "Why the hell are you being so nice to me?"

John paused his scrubbing. "Whadd'ya mean?"

Karkat sighed heavily. "I mean, you drive me to your hive, let me use your shower and shave with your razor, wear your clothes and eat your food." He stammered, "Like—don't you think it's a little _much?_ "

John's mouth twisted into a confused frown. "A little much...of what?"

"Y'know—of you being so nice to me. I mean, I haven't really talked to you in a half-sweep—I didn't even know your girlfriend had dumped you until twenty minutes ago. We used to be great friends," he said tightly, "and now...we haven't really talked since I was such an ass. I mean, that's the whole reason Terezi threw me out in the first place. Was because I was being an ass."

John shrugged. "I guess we've each had our own space this past year. Doesn't mean I should fly past you in my car and splash you with my hydroplaning tires. I mean, you'd do the same for me, right?"

Karkat grunted in mild frustration. He didn't really _know_ if he'd be able to reciprocate if their positions were switched. "I mean, that's the thing about you. That makes you so—frustrating. I can chuck whatever crap I want at you and all you’ll ever be is nice."

John gave a tiny laugh. "Too nice? That's—interesting," he said. "I mean, I wouldn't take in any random person off the street. But I'll admit it's been quiet—these last four months, so...I'm sorry if it was selfish to think you'd just be my new roommate." He produced a nervous laugh, mechanically mopping up the dishwater in the bowl with a dry rag. "In fact, now that I think about it, it was kind of selfish to take advantage of your situation. So, I'm sorry for that." He finished drying the container and placed it back in the cupboard. 

Karkat snickered. "You're sorry that you picked me up off the street, no questions asked? Jegus, there really is something wrong with you,” he said. "You of all people, aren't selfish. So I mean—I don't have to be your roommate if you want to keep looking."

John stared at the cupboard for a moment after closing it. "We can talk about it later," he concluded. "Anyway, do you want to watch a movie? Vriska took with her all the Alternian ones—so I've only got the _good stuff_ ," he said with a joking smirk. 

Karkat grinned. "Your human thinkpan can't even conceive the _good stuff_." But they settled on the couch and put on one of John's favorites. The least Karkat could do was let him pick. They were about twenty minutes in before John said anything.

"Is that sweater uncomfortable? You keep itching it," John remarked.

Karkat barely realized he was absentmindedly rubbing his ribs until John pointed it out. "Nah. The sweater's fine. My chest feels a little tight—must've caught a cold or something."

"Huh. You want me to take a look?"

Karkat's face twisted in confusion. "What do you mean—take a look at what?"

John laughed. "Trust me, I'm like a human stethoscope," he said, shifting on the couch to kneel over Karkat and rubbing his hands together as if to warm them.

"A human—what the hell are you even talking about, John?" John shamelessly lifted Karkat's sweater and stuck his hand underneath.

"Woah, woah—just what the fuck do you think you're doing, Egbert? I thought you weren't a homosexual."

"I'm not, Karkat, relax—I'm just going to check your lungs," he said as he carefully placed a hand on Karkat's back. 

"You don't even know what the troll equivalent of lungs looks like!" Karkat argued. 

"I don't even need to!" John replied cheerfully. "It's not about the shape. It's about the way the air moves through your windpipes. I can _feel_ the way it goes in and out, back and forth, so I can _know_ what’s echoing around in there..."

Karkat sighed at John’s poor explanation of his innate abilities. "Lemme guess—you just can't describe it."

"Yeah. No, I can't describe it," John said absently. "Now breathe in."

Karkat sharply inhaled, coughing a bit after doing so. John grimaced, and his mouth shifted to the side in disconcertion. He adjusted his hand slightly, and told Karkat to breathe out. Karkat did, letting out a low whistle in a slow exhalation.

"Gog, that hurts," he said with a dark laugh. 

"Does it?" John said as he turned to face Karkat. Worry pooled in his dark blue eyes. 

"I mean, not all the time, just when I breathe in that far," he replied, wanting to hastily scrub that fearful look off John's face. He muttered, "Won't lie and say the pressure doesn't bother me, though. Feels like I've got grubsauce stuck in my chest."

"That's really not good," John said sadly. "I hate to tell you this, Karkat but your lungs don't sound good at all. They're awful. All the pipes are either real swollen, or clogged, or both," he said. "It looks like you've got a nasty pneumonia stewing down there."

"A—what?"

"Pneumonia. It's a human disease, Karkat," John explained. "It's like a cold that never got better—so it just settles in your lungs and instead it grows worse. How long have you had yours?"

"Had...what?"

"Your cold," John answered. 

"Uh," Karkat stammered as he tried to remember. "It was a little after Rose and Kanaya threw that grub shower thing."

"That was like, two months ago, Karkat," John said softly. He was shaking his head sadly. 

"Oh," Karkat said. He lowered his head in shame. He knew he could do a better job taking care of himself. Not just in the past three days, but when he was living with Terezi too. And he was always too proud to take a day off from work, not wanting to be beaten out as the breadwinner, since Terezi already made more money than him. But pride wasn't doing anything for him now or for his bag-of-shit troll-equivalent of lungs.

John thought aloud, "Ugh, and I'm sure the rain and cold air out there weren't helping..."

"Is that something you can’t describe either?"

"No—it has nothing to do with my powers," John said. "It’s from experience, I guess. I've had pneumonia a few times. I used to get sick a lot, actually, before the game, really whenever my asthma was acting up—uh, that's another human disease," John explained. Karkat nodded, the memories of watching John’s entire life on his own computer screen flooding in from all that time ago. "So during the springtime, I was stuck at home most of the time,” John said with a small laugh. 

"You're not about to blame your horrible performance during your session on oxygen deprivation, are you, John?" Karkat teased snarkishly. 

"No," John said, detached from Karkat's teasing. "After I started playing, I was fine. It was like the asthma and all my allergies just cleared up. Now that I think about it, it probably had something about me inheriting 'breath'," he said, chuckling. "Or maybe it was Sburb doing me that one solid.

"Look, if Terezi doesn't take you back," John began gently, "you're welcome to live with me if you want, Karkat. At least until you can go back to work again. I mean, you're going to have to take off for a while so your immune system can catch up to this infection."

Karkat was silent a moment. "I don't know, John," he replied uneasily. He knew he had nowhere else to go, and it was stupid to turn an offer like that down. But he couldn't just allow John to let him stay in his apartment. John sensed that. 

"Maybe we can talk about it in the morning?" John suggested quickly, trying to repair the awkward silence. 

"Yeah," Karkat agreed.

"I have some stuff I need to get done, but I think you should probably go to bed," John said. 

"John. It's like, seven thirty," Karkat said indignantly. "I'm not a wriggler, and I don't have a bedtime."

"Maybe not. But God knows you could use some rest," John said sympathetically. Karkat grunted as he heaved himself up to follow John to his bedroom. 

"You've got to be—" he coughed— "you've got to be kidding me."

In the center of John's bedroom were two twin beds pushed together, with all the blankets and pillows piled on top. Karkat glared at John, who just sighed. 

"Hehe. That's left over from—you know," he trailed off. "I just never got around to separating them. I’m not trying to be, you know—too forward or anything," John said, flashing a smile—and he went to pushing his bed to one corner of the room and Karkat's to the other. Karkat insisted on helping him, but John refused to let him overexert himself. He divvied up the pillows and blankets, and John let his friend have most of them.

"Why are you giving me so many?" Karkat asked as John built up a fortress around Karkat in his bed. "I don't need this crapton of pillows..."

"They’ll help. You're probably better off sleeping kind of sitting up—it'll make it easier to breathe," John replied as he wedged four or five pillows behind Karkat's back, and threw another blanket on him. "Be a good idea to keep warm, too."

Karkat tentatively leaned back on the fluffy cushion John had constructed. He didn't know what to say. John smiled kindly at him and said, "I'm going to get you a glass of water for the night. I'll be back." He turned around and left the room. He quickly returned, and Karkat motioned for him to put it in his hand. Karkat took an eager gulp of water, and nearly spilled it on himself as he choked and coughed on it.

John quickly removed the glass from his grasp as a wide eyed panic enveloped Karkat's face. He stiffened up, his shoulders rose as he entered some sort of coughing fit. A struggled chain of croupy barking racked his chest before he could finally grab a high-pitched, desperate breath. John saw this, and alarm washed over his face—he set the glass on the nightstand with a spill. "Oh, God," he said, trying to get Karkat to sit forward. "Keep trying to breathe. Hold on. Lemme get something. Please God, let it still be here," he said quickly to himself before bolting from the room.

Karkat’s head was left spinning. He found his hand clutching at his chest again. His lungs felt like they were filled with cement. Wet, barking coughs were continuously forced from his throat until his lungs had no air left in them to expel. He choked on the congestion brought up from his lungs as he sucked a desperate breath in. A dizziness and vacuumy feeling in his chest left him starved for air. His vision blurred and tinged red as his eyes quickly welled with translucent tears.

He blinked them away as John appeared—breathless himself—at the door to the room with a small device clutched firmly in his fist. He hustled over to Karkat, shaking wildly whatever the blue plastic thing was in his palm. Karkat didn't recognize it, but he trusted John when he held the mouthpiece to his lips. 

"Karkat, this medicine is going to help you breathe, okay?" John explained shakily. His voice was not entirely calm, and his hand holding up the inhaler was trembling slightly. "Breathe slower. You're hyperventilating a little. You're gonna be fine, just—I'm gonna count, on three you take a big breath and hold it in. Okay? One, two, three—"

John's fingers clamped down on the canister. Karkat did as he was told and sucked a strident wheeze deep into his lungs. He felt moist droplets of medication stick to his windpipe, the back of his throat, even his lungs. Some of them tasted sour as they settled into his tongue. He felt a cough threaten to escape his throat. 

"Hold it," John reminded. "I know it's hard but you've got to hold your breath. Okay. Let it go."

Karkat let his breath out raggedly, and wetly coughed once into his hand. He dragged a few more breaths in and out, swallowing thickly. "Do you need another puff?" John asked quietly, shaking his inhaler again. Karkat replied with a shake of the head, afraid his breath would come out as a disconcerting, wheezy hiss. It didn't matter if John wasn't sick anymore—that medicine was John's and who knows if he might still need it after all these years.

"Maybe once more, just to be on the safe side?" John said, almost pleadingly. Karkat felt a twinge in his chest and accepted another puff. It opened his airways enough to allow him to croak out a "thank you."

"I guess you really should be thanking the past me that decided to captchalogue this thing before entering the medium," John said with the tightest smile, so unfitting for him. He let free a nervous sigh as he collapsed onto the edge of the bed in relief. "Knock on wood that I haven't even had to use it once since that day." His shadowy blue eyes looked up at Karkat, tired and heavy—yet still hanging on to an ounce of fear. "Karkat, promise me," John said, and before he knew it John had placed the inhaler in his hand— "that you'll keep this. And guard it with your _life_."

Karkat's eyes widened. "I can't," he wheezed out softly. "You’re crazy, this, this—human breath-giving _thing_ , it’s yours. I can take a lot of things from you John, but this—it's your life, you never know, _anything_ can happen—"

"Please, Karkat, I’m not kidding," John said, and closed around it the fingers on Karkat's palm. "I'll do some alchemy in the morning. Speaking of—" he said, yanking open the drawer to the nightstand and fishing around in it for a little while. He pulled out a thick sharpie pen and ripped off the cap. The acidic signature smell wafted its way into Karkat's nose and elicited a small cough from him. John's eyes reared towards him in alarm. He swiftly took hold of Karkat's wrist, turned it over, and pressed the cool tip onto the back of his hand. He craned his head downward, his poor vision straining to see in the dark. "You have to promise me, Karkat," he said while scribbling, "that if you decide to move back in with Terezi—that you'll at least take this with you." He capped the pen and looked up at Karkat with imploring eyes behind the shadow of his glasses. 

Karkat squinted at the scrawl. It was a code—an alchemiter code, for John's inhaler. He started to nod his head. “Alright," he said, almost inaudibly.

John sighed and stood to return to his own bed across the room. Karkat quickly grappled his wrist. “John—fuckass, you’ve put me in your debt,” he said, frustrated. “How am I supposed to pay you back?”

John moseyed on back to the bed. He laughed. “You don’t have to pay me back. That’s what friends are for.”

“No, you don’t get it—” Karkat said, sighing. “Look, how about this. If there’s a derpy movie that you wanna see coming out next month, you can count me in. And I won’t even laugh, no matter how bad it is.”

“Ooh—look which one of us is in debt now," he said, chuckling. 

Karkat let go of his wrist. His grip wasn't even that strong in the first place. John flopped into his own bed, pulled off his glasses and set them on his own nightstand. 

" _Nighty, night,_ " Karkat jived.

"Don’t let the bed bugs bite."

“Ugh, that’s disgusting. Which one of your ancestors even came _up_ with that?”

“Um—I don’t know. But he was probably pretty unlucky.”

“Ew… _good night_ , Egderp.”

“Heh. Night.”


	2. Pride and Pity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the first night that Karkat spends recovering in John's apartment after John picked him up off the street, homeless, broke, sick and alone.  
> After Karkat has a tragic run-in with the stairs, he sees, for the first time, a new side of John.

Karkat had never been a very good sleeper. And that nighttime sleeplessness was now exacerbated by Karkat's inability to stave off a hacking cough. It was hard to remember exactly how many times Karkat woke up John during the night with all the noise. Even though John was patient, kind and helpful every time he had his sleep interrupted—Karkat couldn't help feeling guilty about depriving him of rest. 

But it was four AM, the fourth or fifth time he remembered getting up in the night. Karkat left the bedroom so as not to wake up John with another coughing fit.

Karkat paced about as much as he could in John's tiny bathroom. He had mentally given up trying to go back to sleep. He remembered the events of the night before, and that his own clothes were still in the dryer downstairs. He worried about somebody stealing his only shirt, pants and pair of sneakers, and thought that if he borrowed John's guest key, he could make himself useful and go get them. Plus, John's clothes were piling up in his hamper—he might as well pop those in the wash machine for him while he was down there. 

Karkat went back into John's room—John was fast asleep in the opposite bed, and didn't so much as stir when Karkat lugged the stinky hamper out of his room. This laundry was definitely more than three weeks old, Karkat thought, which means John is either lazy, forgetful, or not taking care of himself. Before heading out, Karkat glanced at the still-fresh scribble on his hand. He eyed the medicine-device that John insisted he have the night before. It was sitting on the nightstand, so Karkat pocketed it before leaving. He didn't want John to throw a fit for not having it on him—he made it seem pretty damn important, anyway. Then he left the apartment. 

John lived on the fourth floor. Karkat realized that the elevator wasn't operative on Saturdays, so he heaved the laundry basket down the first flight of stairs. He didn't start to feel short of breath until reaching the second landing. He stopped to take a break, and after realizing it did nothing for him, continued down the third flight of stairs. 

Karkat didn't know how it happened—either he tripped or the basket hitched on the step—but whatever it was, it knocked Karkat's feet out from under him. He was sent tumbling down the stairs with the laundry basket after him. 

Karkat hit the landing on his back, winded and covered in John's dirty clothes. He heard footsteps—thumping hard up the stairs almost as loud as he could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

A dersite carapacian's dark face loomed among the fluorescent ceiling lights searing into his eyeballs—

"Did you fall?" he asked in English, although not without a heavy carapacian accent. He must have been the doorman on shift, and heard a noise from upstairs. 

Karkat nodded, and the carapacian was already helping him sit up. "You have a roommate? Apartment number?" he asked brokenly. 

Karkat didn't have the breath to explain to the guy that he and John were _friends_ , but not roommates. "John—" Karkat wheezed out, "—four thirteen."

The dersite bounded up the stairs to get John, stepping on his clothes as he went. Karkat sat with his back against the wall, panting as if he had run a mile. He felt dizzy. Breathing hurt. His chest weighed six million pounds. He thought about how stupid he was, how _embarrassed_ , and how it was _his fault_ that John's laundry was all over the floor at four AM. 

John came hurtling down the stairs, the carapacian jogging behind him. "Karkat!" John exclaimed as he squatted beside him on the floor. His glasses were askew, as if he'd just shoved them on, and his expression was frantic. His questions came out like water from a fire hydrant—"Karkat, are you okay? Are you hurt, can you breathe, do you have my inhaler on you?"

Karkat's muddled mind blanked for a second, until he realized John was referring to the medicine-device. Karkat jammed a hand down his pants pocket to find it, and upon pulling it out, John took it from his weak grip and held it to his lips. Karkat knew that was all unnecessary, that he could have done all that himself—but he didn’t have the energy to protest.

John tried to get him to take a second puff, but Karkat waved him away. "I'm good," he said. Karkat was struggling to get up off the floor—so John had to slip an arm around his back and hoist him to his feet. Karkat swayed for a moment—he couldn’t help that he was practically seeing stars. 

"Oh—you don't have to," John interjected, eyeing the carapacian picking up his clothes and putting them back in his hamper. Karkat felt a guilty pang in his stomach.

"No trouble, sir," the dersite said, giving John a smile. John returned it half-heartedly, but proceeded to practically carry Karkat back up to the apartment. John had left the door wide open. As Karkat collapsed onto the couch, John went back downstairs to retrieve his hamper.

“Are you okay?” John asked lowly after returning to the room and kicking the basket into a lonely corner.

“Well, I don’t know—I’m a broke piece-of-shit who’s leeching off of you—I wouldn’t call that _okay_.”

“I was talking about physically,” John said mutely. “You could’ve been seriously hurt. I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if you didn’t have my inhaler on you, if nobody _found_ you,” he said. “What were you _thinking_?”

“I was _trying_ to do you a favor," Karkat replied. "Figured I'd do the laundry, make myself useful since I'd woken up so early. _But clearly_ I couldn’t even do _that_ right," he muttered.

“Thanks Karkat—” John said gently, “but if you really want to do me a favor, you should—“

“ _Rest_ , yeah, I already know, you’ve told me _twelve thousand times_ ,” Karkat cut him off gruffly. “I’m useless, powerless, I get it, I’m not good for anything anymore.”

“Karkat, I never said—“

“Cut the crap, John—for Gog’s sake, I’ve got no money, no job, I’m living in _your_ apartment, and I can’t escape without becoming my own security gate. I used to have pride—but that toppled over along with the damn laundry basket!”

“Karkat!!” John yelled—which shocked Karkat. He had never heard John get angry before. He had assumed that John was one of the few who were incapable of that kind of thing.

“You're putting words in my mouth, and I hate it,” he said coldly. “You either think that I’m a pathetic lonely freak who wants to trap you here forever—or that I’m pretending that I wouldn’t enjoy throwing coins at you as you sit inside a cardboard box on the corner of Main Street. It’s insulting.”

“John, I didn’t mean to—“

“I don’t pity you,” John said adamantly. “You haven’t somehow _guilted_ me into this, and to me you're _not_ dead weight. You’re not on Alternia anymore, Karkat. Stop running away from nothing. Will it really kill you to slow down, and let me help you get back on your feet? After that, I _promise_ , you can run as far away as you want. Okay?”

“I’m _not_ always running from something,” Karkat muttered. 

John didn’t blow his fuse anymore. He simply sighed, went into the kitchen and began to fix breakfast for the two of them—not mentioning that it was four in the morning. Supposedly, John didn't have any intention of trying to go back to sleep either. Karkat watched him mechanically crack three eggs into a pan. 

Neither of them spoke. Karkat picked up the newspaper from yesterday, brought in by John the other day but still in its little plastic sleeve. He pretended that he was able to concentrate on the front page. 

An omelet was searing in the pan. "Anything interesting?" John asked after watching him stare at it for a while.

"Oh." Karkat read the headline. "Septic staph epidemic plaguing carapacian populations in the north."

"Hmm, I heard about that," John replied grimly. "I wonder if Rose was interviewed for it, since she’s everyone's doctor now. I know she's been working really late with those cases for weeks. It's sad—most of them have died so far."

"John—what's uh—septic staph?" Karkat asked. 

"I think it's some sort of infection in the blood," he replied. "I dunno, Rose tried to explain it while she was over—it might have gone over my head," John chuckled rather forcefully. "But if you want to know more, she's written tons about it."

"Hmm," Karkat said absently. "I might actually take you up on that offer." The thought of blood piqued his interest, and he was willing to read anything—even Rose's _disease reports_ —if he had to stay housebound for however long it would take him to get back on his feet.

"John—how long did you say it would take for pneumonia to clear up?" he asked anxiously. 

"Well, usually it's three to four weeks," John answered. 

"And how long till I can go back to work?"

"Like I said, three to four weeks," John repeated. "See, you're running from things again. Karkat, you know I don't mean to be rude—and I'm not sure if you're understanding this or not, but—you're not supposed to be doing _anything_ until your lungs are cleared out. You need to give yourself time to do that, or else you'll only get worse."

"But—" Karkat protested. 

"You _can_ die from this, Karkat," John said gravely. "Humans used to all the time, before they created medicine. Don't think it can't happen to you." He scraped half of his omelet onto Karkat's plate. 

"No, John, I don’t know if _you're_ understanding this,” Karkat heavily restrained from banging on the table. “This isn’t about pride, or pity. You say you don’t wanna see me in a cardboard box, but I’m gonna be if I don’t have a job. In three weeks, I’m not going to. If I want to keep my position, I have to go back before someone takes over for me. That’s a fact."

"Where do you work?" he asked shortly. "Someone can hold the position for you."

"It won't last," Karkat said grimly. "I work with Kanaya, somewhat. I take her newborn grubs, and the carapacian children, and I teach them English and Alternian. But grubs have families now, and carapacians just teach their children the language— _they've already taken over my job_. There's just no demand for it anymore. I can't wait three to four weeks, I'll be unemployed by then—"

"Karkat," John stopped him. Karkat was afraid he was striking a nerve again, but John didn’t appear angry. "I—might be able to help you. At the carapacian camps, Rose really needs people to help her out," John said, "and she offered the job to me, but I've got so much work on my hands, controlling all the air traffic, so…"

"You—you'd be able to do that?" Karkat said, stunned. 

"I hope so," John said. "You would be her apprentice while she trains you. I'll see if she'll take you in. If you really like all this blood and guts stuff, I mean, she could really use having you around. I’ll have to convince her of that."

"Ha. You think I could make something of myself in the Department of Blood and Guts?" Karkat mused.

John grinned. "Way better than I ever could," he said. "But your job for now is to _rest._ The longer you put that off, the longer you're going to be out of work."

"Can I at least help you bring in a little income while I'm sitting around doing nothing?" Karkat prodded. "I don't know, I could wash everybody's clothes in this building, if I space out the trips—"

"Karkat." John glared him down again. "Rest. Is. Your. Job."

"Jegus, fine," Karkat said gruffly. "But you're bringing home Rose's papers for me, right? I wanna know what I'll be up against."

John laughed. "Okay. I'll fetch them for you, Karkat. I can swing by the library and pick up some medical books, too."

"Yeah, that would be great."

“You’ll be making more than I do once you get moving,” he said jokingly, blowing on a piece of omelet. “What d’ya think you’ll do with all that extra cash?”

It was a dumb question, asking what he’d do with it, as if it weren’t _obvious_. Considering he was completely leeching off of John right now. But he knew John wouldn’t want to hear any of the usual “I owe you” shtick. So instead he replied, “I’d keep it tucked away in the safest corner of my cardboard box.”

John almost choked on his food. He was laughing so hard, Karkat actually had to get up and come round the other side of the kitchen island to thump him on the back. “You good?” Karkat asked with a wary smile, and John nodded as he recovered. 

"Fuck that—you’ll be living in a cardboard _mansion._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all comments are always appreciated! Thanks to anyone who is keeping up with this story!


	3. Two Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John leaves Karkat alone in the apartment. Karkat does a little poking around, and isn't exactly happy with what he finds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 4/13 Eve everybody!!! :)

Karkat's body still refused to sleep for six hours straight, even while sitting up. It was six in the morning, and John was dressed for work in the weather department. He sat on the edge of Karkat's bed in his slacks, shirt and tie, and a backpack resting on one shoulder. 

"You feeling alright?" John asked. 

"Nope," Karkat bluntly answered, "but I don't feel any more awful than I did yesterday. So at least I know I'm not worse—" Karkat stopped to wetly cough and spit congestion into a tissue. John didn't even flinch. 

"I can stay home if you need me to," John offered gently. 

"Nah. Go to work. I'll be fine," he deferred, reclining back onto the pillows. 

"Try to get some sleep, okay?" John said, getting up and moving towards the doorway. 

"Can't guarantee it, but I'll try," Karkat muttered. "Hey—would you mind passing me my inhaler?"

John plucked it off the nightstand. "It's almost run out," he observed, handing it to Karkat. "Before work I'll head down to the alchemy office, and pick up a new one."

"Thanks so much," Karkat said before taking a puff. He was almost too used to doing it by himself now. 

"If you run out or if something happens, _call me,_ " John told him. 

"I know, I will, I will. Now _go to work_ ," Karkat instructed, and John laughed before leaving and closing the door behind him.   
-  
Karkat managed to drift in and out of wakefulness for six more hours—at 12 noon he was doing nothing more than lying in bed, so he figured he'd squeezed all the sleep out of himself as he could. 

He got up to eat, and found a sandwich made for him on the counter—accompanied by a note in John's scribbly handwriting:

_dear karkat, hope you had a good sleep! :B hopefully my boss will be nice today and i'll be back home by four. don't be afraid to take a few naps while I'm gone, haha. rest well and feel better. –john_

Karkat smirked at the paper, at John's idiocy. No one went two blocks without a computer, telephone or even a freaking PDA—yet John still opted for human snail mail as his communication of choice. He set the note down on the opposite side of the kitchen counter so as not to get crumbs on it, and unwrapped the Nutella and banana sandwich from wax paper. He sat there, eating and contemplating how he was going to answer John, in case he decided to follow John's lame advice and sleep any more.   
-  
Karkat felt slightly giddy as he quickly cleaned up and went to grab a piece of scrap paper out of John's den. He thought maybe he should tape it to the front door behind the screen so that John would find the note before he found him. 

Karkat went towards the printer when he paused at something he found in the tray. He felt guilty poking his nose into John's private space—but he began reading a letter John had written and printed before he could stop himself. It was exceedingly long, spanning three pages, single spaced—yikes, Karkat thought to himself. He began to skim through it:  
-  
 _Dear Vriska—_

_I know that I'm probably the last person you wanna hear from right now—_

_—I know we fought over some expenditures, and I think you were right, it was silly for me to get mad. You can keep what you bought, and we can just forget about the whole thing—_

_—I'm really sorry for being culturally insensitive, and I understand that you and Eridan are together, and I accept that—_

Karkat had to stop reading. He also didn't much feel like writing a silly note for John anymore. Or sleeping.   
-  
 _John was actually thinking of sending this to Vriska._ Familiar anger heated up inside Karkat, as he thought of what Vriska might have done to drag John back to her, crawling in his knees. He would have marched over to her hive and kicked the crap out of her if he weren't unable to make it down a flight of stairs. He shuffled into the living room to put on one of John's dumb movies, trying to take his mind off the note. He was failing miserably to do so as he sat in front of the television when John walked through the door.   
-  
"Hey Karkat!" John chimed as he threw his bag down on the couch at four thirty. 

"Hey," Karkat replied lamely. "How was work?"

"It was great today, actually!" John replied emphatically. "It was windy, so I had a lot to work with! The weather's been too calm lately, I think. Today was _a breath of fresh air._ " He paused for effect. Karkat did not deliver. John frowned. "C'mon Karkat! I can be funny sometimes, right?"

"Ha ha," Karkat replied flatly. 

John's face fell concerned. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

Karkat said nothing, but he walked over to the counter, and took Vriska's letter out from under the one John left for him. He handed it to John, who recognized it immediately. 

John began gently, "Karkat—"

"Vriska's a bitch," Karkat blurted out, "She's taking advantage of you—trying to make you feel bad for something you probably didn't do—"

"We fought over something she bought using our shared bank account," John said. "It was nothing, and I just wanted to clear the air."

" _Bullshit_ ," Karkat spat. "John, you can't love someone who's only trying to use you. Because that's what she's doing. You said in here that you'd—“ Karkat read off the paper-- _"’welcome her back into our apartment’_? John, _fuck_ —that's not _clearing the air_."  
-  
John sighed with resignation. "She needs me Karkat," he said softly. "She could be a nice person, if only she had someone that could care about her, really."

"She has friends. She has a moirail. She has plenty of people that care about her," Karkat argued. He said in a softer tone, "I know you think you can change her, John. Fix her, even. But some people can't be fixed, no matter how nice you are. The only thing that's gonna happen is you getting hurt, and I'm not gonna fucking sit back and let that happen!"

John tucked his chin into his collar and said nothing. "I hope you weren't planning to raise your own slobbery offspring one day," Karkat said gruffly under his breath. 

" _Raise offspring_?" John asked, picking his chin up. "Like—how Rose and Kanaya do? I mean, yeah, I was planning on having kids," he said thoughtfully. "If I had a girl, I'd name her Joey."

"Well, do you really want Vriska to be her mother?"

John's eyes flashed behind his glasses. He began staring, saying nothing. Karkat grew tired of his silence, and exasperatedly went to take out a pan and a bowl. 

"No," John answered out of the blue. "I don't."

"Eh?" Karkat grunted as he loaded his arms up with containers from the refrigerator.

"No, I don't want her to be my kids' mom."

Karkat spread everything out on the counter. He nodded. "Good," was all he said. 

"Thank you, Karkat."

"You're fucking welcome."

"Wait—what are you doing?"

Karkat stared blankly at John as he cracked the first egg into a bowl. "Making dinner," he replied as if it were obvious.

"Yeah—but how'd you learn how to do it?"

"You make one of these things every morning. You think I wasn't picking up on anything?"

John laughed. "No it's just—you don't eat omelets for dinner. They're a breakfast food."

Karkat's face scrunched up. "No. Foods can't be limited to certain times of day, that's stupid." He beat the eggs harder with the whisk. 

“Hey Karkat?” John asked after a length of silence. “You're the romance expert, right?"

"One and only."

"Well—do you know if humans can have moirails? That's the platonic one, right?"

"Yeah, it's conciliatory. And I guess they can," Karkat replied practically. He was deeply focused on sprinkling chopped ingredients into the eggs. "I mean, for the longest time we thought you guys couldn't feel that kind of stuff, but hey, who am I to tell someone what they can or can’t feel?"

"Right," John answered absently. "So—can moirails have kids together? You know, if one of them doesn't have a matesprit."

"Eh, well you're kind of forgetting that trolls never raised their own offspring," he said pointedly, still absorbed with the task in his hands. "But if they did, I suppose it'd be reserved for relationships that pail. But you're human, so what the hell, go wild, I guess." He poured the mixture into the hot pan. "Why are you asking so many questions, anyway?" He smirked. "Do you have a crush on someone? Who is she? Is it Roxy?"

"Hey!" John exclaimed. "Why does it have to be with a girl? You said it was platonic."

"Well yeah," Karkat said. "But with the kids thing—well, whatever. You can date whomever you want, have kids with whomever you want. You’re the one who made up heterosexuality, in the first place, so you get to make the rules of it."

John finally ceased his questions. For a while. Among the searing of the omelet in the pan, he asked, "Do you ever think about raising grubs?"

"Hah. Not if they're gonna turn out like Kankri. Wouldn't want my genetic material abused in such a fashion. So no thank you," Karkat grumbled, fiddling with the spatula. He added, "Plus I'd probably do nothing but screw them up."

"You'd make a great dad, Karkat."

"Yeah, nice sentiment, but what does this have to do with me any—" Karkat froze, and whipped around to face John. "Wait—you want _me_ as your moirail?"

John looked into Karkat's flustered eyes with his own soft ones. "Being scared is a good thing," he said gently. "The people who think they're not good enough to be raising kids, they make the best parents."

"What are you even talking about—"

"If I don't find anyone, and you don't find anyone," John said all in a rush, "then we could be moirails, and we could just raise grubs and kids. So many of them get raised by carapacians instead of us, right? It's shameful to let a kid not to grow up with your own kind, and what with the epidemics and all—"

"John—stop," Karkat said. He looked at John, who seemed deeply hurt by his abrasive cutoff. Karkat continued firmly, "Your brain is running at 200 miles per hour, all because you're upset over Vriska and you're feeling alone and empty. I get it. But you're talking delusional!"

"I'm not! I swear," John countered emphatically. "I mean, reading that letter over made me realize something. With the way things are now, with you living here—you're right, there _is_ a difference between being loved and being used. And yeah? I guess when I wrote that letter I was stupid, I didn't know it, but I do now."

Karkat paused for a moment before remembering the sizzling omelet in the pan. He frantically grabbed the spatula and turned it over. It was charcoal black on one side. John laughed. "We can scrape it off?" he said kindly.

Karkat smiled back. "Alright, Egbert. I'll be your moirail if you want me to. But you're _going_ to find someone, alright? You're not gonna die alone. You're gonna make some—girl really happy one day," Karkat said briskly. He cut the omelet in half and divided it among two plates. 

John responded with nothing but silence through pursed lips and a downcast look. "I have your stuff," he said, ripping open the zipper to his backpack and spilling the contents in front of Karkat. "I picked you up a new inhaler, some books from the library—" he carefully set a bottle of pills on the table. "I also got some prescription antibiotics from Rose. She says they'll help you get rid of the infection. You're supposed to take two every day with food."

Karkat badly concealed a twisted grin. "Thanks for everything," he said, opening the bottle and spilling a pair of tablets into his palm and gulping them down with a swig of water. He pushed a plate with a half-omelet on it towards John. "Now let's eat this awful thing before it gets cold."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All comments at any time are well appreciated! :)


	4. As the Days Go By

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few weeks have passed since Karkat became John's makeshift roommate. During that time, Karkat has been hitting hard on the books to earn that apprenticeship--fearing inadequacy in the sharp eyes of Dr. Rose Lalonde.  
> John takes Karkat to see her at her office--not only to check Karkat's lungs but to also check his skills.  
> Afterward, John and Karkat wind down for the night. (fluff)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG has it been a while since I posted. Nearly a month! I really do apologize to anyone who has been waiting that long. -_- Finals and end-of-year-crap really sucks the life out of you. Also, this chapter is longer than the others, so i think that's partly why it took so long in the making. But I am back, and I do intend to finish this story, since I think it's really terrible to start something and then not finish it. It just may be a little slow for a while. I admire all of you patience <3 I estimate that this will run up to seven or so chapters.

After a week or so, John and Karkat had settled into a routine. 

Karkat woke up with John at six. John made breakfast for the pair of them before he went to work. Every few days, John checked out Karkat's lungs—smiled when he thought he heard improvement. John went to work. Karkat stayed at home. He slept most of the day, then woke up once he had enough, fixed himself something to eat and studied the books Rose had instructed him to read for his apprenticeship. John texted Karkat what time he was going to be home, and Karkat made sure some sort of breakfast food made it to the table by the time he got there. John thought that Karkat's health was improving. Every so often, John went with Karkat to see Rose for a checkup on his lungs. 

Today was one of those days. Karkat was sitting on a barstool at the kitchen island, suppressing the headache that the latest reference book was giving him. He jumped at a text message from John. It read that he was going to be home at seven. 

_Geez,_ he thought to himself. Five o'clock was John’s average ETA, so tonight for him was _really_ late. It made him a little antsy, since he was supposed to see Rose today—a person who wasn’t a big fan of unpunctuality. 

just get dressed and be ready for when i swing by the house, okay? that way you can just hop in the car.  
DON'T YOU WANNA GET SOMETHING TO EAT FIRST?  
there isn't time to sit down. we won’t make it there in time if we don’t leave right away.  
OKAY. I CAN DO THAT.  


Karkat put his book down on the counter, and paced around the kitchen for a bit. Along with the regular checkup, he knew Rose was going to talk to him about the job. He knew he’d have to dress nice, and he was dreading it. He'd barely left the house since John took him in, so he'd been walking around the house in John's old T-shirts and sweatpants since then. His old clothes were on the counter. They still smelled like rain water. _That_ was bound to make an _excellent_ impression.

CAN I BORROW SOMETHING FROM YOUR CLOSET?  
yeah, sure. take whatever you need  


Karkat crossed into John’s side of the bedroom. He could only find one shirt with long sleeves—a blue turtleneck sweater shoved into the recesses of the closet. He found a pair of pants to go with it, and quickly pulled them on. He slapped a few globs of Nutella on bread just as John was pulling up the street. 

The freezing rain whipped outside. It was "autumn" as John called it, and apparently that meant that trees started temporarily dying, and the Earth got colder than the frozen asteroid that it already was. Trolls were not used to these kind of temperatures. 

Karkat pulled on his coat over his head and used it to shield the pair of sandwiches. He hurtled himself out through the rain and into the passenger's seat. "Take one," Karkat said breathlessly as he plunked himself down into the passenger seat. He tried to hand the sandwich to John.

"I can't eat while I'm driving!"

"Hey. Be grateful, you asslicker. I slaved over that. But fine—starve if you want to."  


John smirked, but started the car. "You look nice," he commented.

Karkat’s eyebrows shot straight into his hair. He said gruffly, "Eyes on the road."

John laughed as he drove over potholes in the asphalt. "That's not what I meant. The turtleneck looks nice on you. You should keep it."

Karkat sighed. "I don't see why you humans consider it _rude_ to go out in public dressed in pajamas,” he said tiredly. “ _I_ should get to, since I never made god tier."

“Don’t worry, you look fine. We’ll go out sometime to get you fitted with your own suit and tie.” John pulled to a full stop after just missing a yellow light. "Hey, can you give me piece of that sandwich?" he asked. 

Karkat snickered. "I thought you said you couldn't eat in the car."

"C'mon!" he exclaimed. "Before it turns green again!"

Karkat slowly ripped off a piece of the sandwich, smirking at John. He handed it over, and John unceremoniously shoved it in his mouth. Karkat laughed and continued to rip little pieces off and put them between John’s teeth as he drove. 

They arrived at the doctor's office. It was a tiny, run down sort of building: the kind with a cramped parking lot that was hard to get out of. They sat in the waiting room for Rose's last appointment to end.

John looked more than a little exhausted as he collapsed into one of Rose’s little beige chairs. He took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes.

"Y'alright?" Karkat asked him. 

John tilted his head up at the ceiling with his eyes closed. "Yeah. Just tired."

"Don't crash the car on the way home."

He replaced his lenses and adjusted them with one hand. He smirked. "Wasn't planning on it."

Dr. Rose Lalonde appeared at the door. She had on the whole getup—lab coat, clipboard and everything. "Hi, Rose!" John greeted, rising to his feet as fast as he could in his state of exasperation. 

Rose gave a tight lipped smile in return. "Hello, John. Hello, Karkat. Follow me into the back."

"I see that the prescription is doing you well,” she said as they entered the room. She was making notes on her little clipboard—she was also making sure Karkat couldn't see any of what she was writing. 

"His lungs are really clearing out," John replied earnestly, "I've been checking."

"We'll see about that," Rose replied, putting the buds of her stethoscope into her ears. Karkat finally understood John's joke, about being a human one of those, the first time Rose examined him with her own. He sat down on the exam bed, the protective paper sheet crunching under his weight. 

Karkat never particularly liked Rose's professional demeanor. Like when she told him to keep breathing in when his lungs simply wouldn't allow it, or like when she made him blow into a little plastic tube without telling him what it was for. 

She wrote a few more numbers on his paper. 

"How'd I do this time?" Karkat asked after doing the plastic tube test.

"Pretty awful," she said. "But far better than last time we saw each other." John laughed, and clapped Karkat mildly on the back. Karkat gave a twisted smile. Rose smirked in return. 

"I take it you're still using John's inhaler?" Rose asked. 

"Yeah, he is," John answered for him. "Why, because he’s doing so well?"

"No," Rose answered curtly. "Albuterol will not cure pneumonia. It's okay for him to use though—if he's suffering from any shortness of breath, I'd certainly encourage it. But too much over a short period of time is sure to give you a nasty tremor."

"Tremor…?" Karkat asked. 

"What you're doing with your hands right now."

John was holding one of them, and had been since they'd entered the exam room. Since Karkat was nervous enough about this visit to want to pee himself, he'd let John do it. Karkat looked down at his gray hands—the fingers of which were shaking uncontrollably. 

"Yeah. That's a side effect of the medication," she said. "Alright. John, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the room."

John couldn't stop his eyes from widening like a doe's. "But—"

"Only for this part of the visit, will I ask you to abide by doctor-patient confidentiality. Sorry."

John looked from Karkat to Rose again, and then retreated to the waiting room. Then, Rose seized the chance to circle in for her kill. 

She looked Karkat up and down with a stare like hot magma. "Did you read my paper?"

Karkat cleared his throat. "Yes."

"And what did you think of it?"

"Well, honestly—the first time I read it I thought it was a load of crap," Karkat said. Rose raised her eyebrows. He continued, "Like, I didn't understand a word of what you were talking about. But then, I started reading a little more about it, like, from the books John kept bringing home— _The Nature of Epidemics_ , ones like that—so I read the paper again. And it made sense, that the epidemic was probably caused by a combination of biological, ecological and social factors. And I agreed with your approach."

"Well, it's easy to agree with my approach, if my theory is the only one you've read."

"Well, a week ago I checked out that book you were talking about last time we were here," Karkat said. "The one Aranea Serket wrote. I didn't read the whole thing, though, cause it's like six hundred pages of the same thing—"

This earned a snicker from Rose. "Right. And?"

"And I thought that her theory, that the cause of the epidemic was purely biological, was—I dunno. One dimensional? Maybe even a little deluded."

Rose stared at him for a longer while. She scared Karkat in more than one way. He didn't know what she was going to say, but she nodded, pursed her lips and walked over to her desk. She picked a book off the tabletop, pulled her own bookmark out of the pages, and handed it to Karkat, along with a few other pamphlets. Karkat watched as she signed off on a new Rx, and piled it onto the stack. "See what you think of those," she said. Then she simply reopened the door to the waiting room.

Karkat eyed John, who for a hot second looked like had had fallen asleep in the chair before being jerked awake. He looked anxious when he returned to the room. Rose said, "Alright, Karkat, it looks like you're good to go. Keep taking those meds, and resting yourself, and your lungs should clear out soon enough."

“Alright,” Karkat replied mutely. 

“Bye, Rose," John said. Rose gave a little wave. 

Once she was out of earshot, John asked anxiously, "What happened in there?"

Karkat had been in a daze since Rose had plunked that book in his hands. "Um—oh. She renewed my prescription," he replied shortly. "Hey—can we stop by the library on the way home?"

"Uh—yeah. Sure. We can do that.”

* * *

"Storm's coming," John said as he pulled the car into the library parking lot. The human clouds in the sky had decided that a full-fledged downpour was in order. Karkat could see it from the windshield wipers on John’s car, which were flapping rapidly highest setting. "S'posed to rain all night."

"Great."

"You know which ones you need?" John asked as he put the car into park. 

Karkat reached for the car door. "Yeah. I think so," he said.

"Wait—I'll go in," John interjected. "It's not a big deal. You ought to stay in the heated car anyways. Just text me the ones you need."

"Hm. Okay," Karkat replied, slipping his phone out of his pocket. He watched John get out of the car and disappear into the rain, Karkat began texting him a rather long list—he wondered if John would even comply. When he was done, he jiggled his foot in the passenger seat until, waiting.

Until, low and behold—John emerged from the downpour with an appropriately large stack shielded by a few plastic shopping bags. 

"Oh my gog, John, thank you so much," Karkat gushed as John smiled and transferred the wet bags to his lap.

They quickly drove home—John took the books off Karkat's wet lap and carried them inside for him. _How chivalrous,_ Karkat thought as he followed him in. 

"Ugh, my feet feel like they're gonna fall off," John said as he flopped on the couch. It was about eight forty five. John turned to face Karkat, his face rather concerned. "Hey. Am I really not allowed to know what happened while I was out of the room?"

"Oh. Yeah," Karkat replied, taking the seat beside him. "Well, she talked to me a little bit about her paper. Asked me what I thought about it. I told her, and she didn't say anything. She just gave me a book, some pamphlets and more medicine.” 

John seemed deeply exhausted as he listened. But he gave a weak smile and said, "She likes you. So that must mean that you have a job."

"It's not a guarantee," Karkat replied flatly. "All she did was give me some more stuff to read."

"But that's her way of saying she's impressed," John insisted. He would have been bouncing off the walls with excitement, if his voice weren’t strained with tiredness. "She'll never tell you. She'll always do things like that. Trust me, it's a _really_ good sign."

Karkat shifted nervously in his seat. "Can I take my books into our room?" he asked briskly. 

"Yeah, they're over here," he said, dragging himself up off the couch and grabbing the stack off the chair. "But—do you think you have the time to come sit and watch a little TV?"

Karkat froze for a moment at John's almost pleading expression. He stammered, "Uh—okay. Sure."

John carefully placed the books at Karkat's feet, then returned to the couch. John happily took the seat next to Karkat and kicked his feet up onto the coffee table. He turned on the TV to some low-budget action movie, and the both of them fell quiet as it played.

Karkat had his eyes absently trained on the screen until he felt a thump on his shoulder, and a scruff of hair on his neck. He didn't dare turn his head, but he knew John was lying on him, faintly snoring. 

_It hasn't even been ten minutes,_ Karkat thought to himself. John must've been exhausted—Karkat couldn't even fathom how the hell he even managed to drive the two of them home. Karkat smiled and used his free hand—the one not imprisoned to his side by John's body—to grab the remote and shut off the TV. John didn't even budge—he was out _cold_. Karkat draped a blanket over his sleeping figure and slid his glasses off his face, and placed them on the coffee table. 

Karkat suddenly got this nervous feeling in his chest—not tightness, but fluttering. He feared that John would wake up and be weirded out by— _all this._ He felt the awkwardness twisting up inside him like a wire, and he worried about what John would think when he came to again, if he would get the wrong idea. Karkat, being careful not to jostle John, sifted through the books at his feet in order to find something to read, maybe take his mind off it.

His hand faltered in front of a title he didn't expect to see at the bottom of the pile: 

_In which a highblood male becomes flushed for a lowblood female flame from his past, while still maintaining kismesissitude with a highblood male, until vacillation begins occurring between the aforementioned, at the disgust of the first highblood's female jadeblood moirail. Countless instances of flirtatious dialogue. Twenty four instances of hand holding, eleven of sloppy make outs._

Karkat picked up the book and opened it up to the inside cover. 

in case you need to take a break once in a while! :B  


Karkat smiled to himself, and at the sleeping body beside him. He _did_ need a break. _Both of them_ needed a break. He decided to take John’s silent advice. He cracked open the book to the first page and cozied up against the couch cushions. 

* * *

It was getting late when John began to stir beside him. 

Karkat tensed in his seat. The fluttery feeling in his chest quickly swelled up again. He held his breath.

John squinted up at Karkat, eyes bare of lenses, as he swam into wakefulness. He didn't move away from Karkat's body. His blurry gaze moved to Karkat's romance novel, clutched tightly in his hands. "You read a lot," he remarked, reaching over and flipping through the hundred or so pages Karkat had breezed through. "I slept a long time, huh?"

"Like an hour. Yeah," Karkat replied. His voice was small and mousy. "Thanks for picking this up."

John gave a toothy grin. "That's what I'm here for."

His eyes fluttered closed again, and he slumped back against Karkat. Karkat gave John's slack shoulders a gentle shove and said, "Alright. _Bed_." Karkat pulled John up off the couch, who swayed a moment before deciding to remain on his feet. Karkat grabbed John's glasses off the coffee table, and tucked the romance novel under one arm. He ushered them off towards their bedroom. 

"Geezus, m'feet are tired...I'was standing all day with the planes going back and forth..." John said dazedly. 

"All the more reason to get at least eight hours in," Karkat said as he plopped John into his bed. He even made the executive decision to pull John's dorky con air sheets over his curled up figure. 

John didn't seem to mind. "Glasses," he muttered.

"Yeah, I got em."

John burrowed his face deeper into those silly sheets. _Gog, he looks like a little kid all tucked in and tuckered out like that._

"Get some sleep, alright?" Karkat said. Karkat took the incomprehensible mumble from John as a cue to climb into his own bed. He settled in with his book and the little clip reading light John got for him a couple weeks back. 

He barely got through two pages when John gave his first snuffly snore. 

Karkat chuckled, softly enough so as not to rouse John. He adjusted the neck of his little lamp, brought his knees to his chest, and buried a shy smirk into the pages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and following this story this far!! It means a lot and I hope to update this more frequently in the future. See you all later ;)


	5. Tis Off to Work They Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat accompanies Rose at her shift in Skaia City Hospital's Emergency Room. Following a couple of unexpected encounters--Karkat and Rose consider whether being an ER doctor is the right job for him. In either case, though--moirail John presents a surprise to Karkat when he comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAA IM BACK!!! wow. this chapter was supposed to be posted about five months ago. but here it is now! this has been in the works for so long, I'm excited for y'all to finally read it. lemme know what ya think! ;P

Karkat's stomach churned as John’s car lurched to a stop in front of the hospital. He watched his gray fingers tremble around his study sheet, scribbled on it the hydrocarbon compounds he was fruitlessly trying to memorize. 

"Hey," John said quietly. Karkat could tell he was feebly searching for something to say. "You've studied enough, y'know. As long as you don't sweat through those scrubs of yours, you'll be fine."

Karkat's stomach flopped over once more. He tugged at the V neck of his stiff, straight-out-of-the-package pair of pale mauve scrubs. "Alright," he said lowly. He gave John an awkward side hug over the center console and climbed out of the passenger side door. 

 

Karkat began walking up the gritty sidewalk entrance up to the hospital double doors, and his nose remained in the flimsy paper, amongst the hydrocarbons—

—until _thunp_. His head had hit something, and a hollow pain reverberated inside his thinkpan.

Karkat absently rubbed the place where his forehead had collided with the metal pole. 

John was out of the car in an instant—with a slam of the door he was by Karkat’s side. "Are you bleeding?" he asked frantically. He swiftly turned Karkat's head towards him to inspect it.

"If I am, I'm right near the emergency room," Karkat said abstractedly. 

"No blood. You have a little grease on your face, though," John said, not hesitating to wipe it away with his licked thumb. 

"Nghh! You're _not_ my human mother," Karkat said, swatting away John's hand. 

John's face softened. "Studying and walking are okay—just not at the same time, alright?"

“Ugh—you’re such a _Dad_ , Karkat scoffed. Having received no irritated response from John, his face looked rather downcast. "I haven't even begun to memorize _these_ yet," Karkat grumbled lowly.

John smiled a bit. "You know enough," he said, grinning widely.

Karkat took one peek at that grin from under his own awkward mop of hair. A smile poked out of his lips. "I'm going," he declared, and continued up the path—leaving John waving his arm like a windmill on the walk.

* * *

The minute Karkat walked in, he saw Rose in the lobby, dressed in mauve scrubs identical to his, a pristine white lab coat draped over her shoulders, a polished black shoe jutting out to one side. Waiting. 

"Hi," Karkat said sheepishly.

"Hello," she replied. "Today we're going to the emergency room."

She apparently wasn't planning to go easy on him the first day.

She turned on her heel and began walking, with Karkat struggling to tail her on the rear. "This is one of the more difficult departments, as you may imagine," she said. "I want you to see some of the worst things you may ever see."

Before Rose could speak any further, a Prospitan woman caught up beside her and tapped her on the shoulder. "You drop this, miss?" she said with a carapacian accent. 

Rose turned around briskly and plucked the paper from the woman's spidery fingers. She unfolded it and read what was inside. She turned to Karkat with a hard look, and showed him the paper. "Is this yours?"

Fucking _hydrocarbons._

"Uh—yeah. Yes," he quickly corrected, taking it from her hands. 

Rose thanked the carapacian woman, who bowed her head and walked the other way. Rose turned to Karkat. She narrowed her eyes and smiled.

Karkat blinked blankly back at her.

She finally said, “You might wanna put that in the pocket of your lab coat."

"My lab...what?" he stammered. 

Rose had already started back down the hall. She stopped into what must have been a doctor's lounge on the way, and plucked a white coat identical to her own—although less worn—off a hook on the door. She handed it to Karkat, another stiff piece of new clothing. "You're going to need this, so they know what you are," she said. She continued down the hall to another set of double doors, adorned with signs that prohibited "non medical personnel."

The emergency room. 

Rose swiped her badge, and the doors parted open mechanically before her. She strode through the door. 

Karkat jerked his legs into motion, following her before they clanked shut behind him.

* * *

After checking in and receiving her assignments for the day, Karkat followed Rose from the tiny doctor's station to a wide room large enough to be a gymnasium, with cots arranged in columns on either side. Thin teal curtains separated each patient from another. And nearly _all of them_ were occupied. 

Rose made rounds to the ten patients who each were assigned to her for the day. She couldn’t really interview each of them for more than ten minutes, although each case was serious enough to warrant her full attention. Almost all of her patients had at least one complication of some sort, some illness, in _addition_ to being a victim of the epidemic. The way that Rose went around asking each a brief set of questions, listening to their heart and lungs—reminded Karkat vaguely of a speed dating show he and John had stayed up watching one night.

Karkat could see now why Rose had enlisted him in the first place.

***

For a long time, Karkat watched Rose work. She spent the day hermited up at her desk in the tiny doctor's station. Shielded from the spacious patient area by a high wall, she was left to log patient info into the computer without distraction. 

Karkat observed as Rose would work out the mathematics behind a medication dosage, or nuance a regimen to adjust a patient's blood chemistry. Karkat _had_ studied well enough, and could understand it all just fine. Blood was his forte, his _aspect_ , after all. But all the numbers made his head hurt. And all the sitting made his butt hurt. 

When Rose instructed him to grab her a 22 gauge needle—although his legs were somewhat asleep, he was up in an instant.

Karkat emerged from behind the hermit-doctor area and dared to set foot in the room with the cots— _the main ER._ Between the line of curtains on each wall was a large gap, where medical workers in scrubs of a rainbow of colors flew back and forth like New Yorkers within a city block—all with someplace to be. Most— _nope_ , virtually _all_ of the staff—were carapacians. Prospitans and Dersites bounced from bed to bed, from patient to patient, like pinballs. The whole ward was buzzing with a sort of tense energy. 

_"Move!"_ a large Prospitan man yelled roughly in Alternian. Before Karkat could comprehend _why_ this man had assumed he _didn't speak English_ , the man pushed past him as he made a beeline for something. _"Troll boy, watch you back,"_ he said again. 

Karkat learned very soon that it wasn't ideal to stay in one place for too long. 

Karkat began asking around as to where he could find a 22 gauge needle. In the swarm of worker bees, he felt like a firefly that kept bumbling dumbly into a lamp. After being shoved and brushed off a few times, a nice Prospitan woman pointed him in the direction of a supply cabinet. "Third drawer," she said. "Password is 61217."

Karkat quickly thanked her and rooted around a drawer full of medical equipment until he was ninety-percent sure that he found what he was looking for. He turned around to return to Rose when someone from one of the bed cubicles called out to him.

"Excuse me, nurse! Yes, you," he called out.

Karkat's head jerked towards the sound. He twitched at the word _nurse._ He didn’t feel like a nurse, or a doctor, for Gog’s sake—but he had forgotten that his scrubs made him look like everyone else on staff. He looked behind him, but found no one. Karkat’s heart pounded in his chest as he slowly approached the man—a Dersite—standing in front of the curtains of one of the bed-cubicle things.

Karkat's eyes widened upon closer look. The elderly man in the bed was the Mayor. The year since Karkat last saw him on the meteor had wrinkled his skin like a raisin—faded his black carapace into a dusty, dark gray. 

“Mayor—hi…” Karkat stammered as a greeting.

“Karkat, hello!” Mayor exclaimed—although his voice was low and strained. He spoke in carapacian, which effectively invited the rest of his family to speak their native language as well. He held out his hand for Karkat to take, and kissed the back of his palm.

The younger man standing in the halfway-drawn curtains flagging Karkat down—was very clearly the Mayor’s son. The Mail Lady, old and dusty white as well, sat politely in a little plastic chair, a welcoming smile poking through her anxious expression. A few of their other carapacian kiddies bounced around in the remaining square-footage. 

The son said, "Hello. My father very badly has to pee. He's been waiting forever, and we've been here since three this morning."

Karkat nodded, listening. "Well—I think we have the little bottles for that? Let me see if I can find one..."

Karkat stepped away from the curtained off room in search of another one of those supply carts. The itch to _move_ had quickly returned, and Karkat felt like a firefly again. Karkat panicked, as he felt the urgency (no pun intended) draining his time—the supply carts were hard to pick out amongst all the chaos. 

What—or rather, _who_ —wasn't hard to pick out, however—was the only brown skinned face in the entire room. She was dressed in bright green scrubs, with her thick hair falling in aloof tangles down her back. When she turned, her bright green eyes immediately recognized Karkat from behind large, round glasses. 

"Karkat, hi!" Jade exclaimed. "Oh my goodness, Rose told me you were coming sometime soon—when did you start working here?"

"Jade, this is not the time for a shitty makeshift reunion," Karkat grunted. He felt a pang of guilt that those were the first words he’d said to her in months. "Do you know where I can find one of those damn pee bottles?"

She took a glance at the Mayor sitting up in the bed. "Oh," she said, the gears of her nursing brain beginning to turn. "Yeah, I do. But he doesn't need one of those, though. He can walk to the bathroom, if you help him get there."

Karkat stood there, watching, as Jade expertly detached the Mayor from all the machines, and untangled his IV. She took him up by the arm, helping the man—much more feeble than Karkat had remembered—to get out of bed. 

Karkat copied her. 

Jade let go, transferring the Mayor to Karkat for support. She pointed towards the bathroom, down a small adjacent hallway to the right.

"Thank you, Jade," Karkat gushed as he left the tiny curtained cubicle, the Mayor on one side. 

"Mm hmm! If you need anything else, just come and find me!" she responded as she sauntered away. 

Karkat chugged along in baby steps down the long hallway to the bathroom. He walked almost toe to toe, so as not to challenge the Mayor’s weary pace. But the Mayor, hunched over and trembling, was already panting heavily by the time the two walked down the hall.

Karkat held the door open for him, and the Mayor smiled. 

"Alright, so—you don't need me to, like—go in there with you, right?" Karkat asked, biting his lip. 

The man snorted, and hissed out a laugh. "No," he said affirmatively. “I don’t need you to watch me go pee and poo. Not this time.” And with that he shut the door. 

Karkat leaned on the wall, let out a sigh—but only for a moment before he choked on it. Panic swelled in his chest as he spotted Rose watching him _standing around._

She began to approach Karkat, and his stomach only tightened more. Her face looked stern. 

"Did you get lost?" she asked, already implying she knew that he didn't. "Why are you standing around?"

Karkat felt a bit of anger rebel in his throat. "I'm waiting for someone to get out of the bathroom. I've gotta walk him back." He added, "Jade said to."

Karkat half expected a scolding about not wandering off—but Rose just pursed her lips and nodded, saying, "Meet me back at the doctors' station when you're done." She checked her wristwatch. "Your day is almost over, y’know."

Karkat glanced at the clock. He hadn't realized that five hours could have gone by so quickly. 

By the time he looked back at Rose, she had already turned on her heel to leave. The Mayor then emerged from the bathroom shortly after, and Karkat took his arm once again. 

_Baby steps, baby steps._

When the pair returned to the cubicle, Karkat replaced the Mayor’s IV and linked all his wires back to his machines to the best of his memory. 

"Thank you so much,” the Mail Lady gushed from behind him. “We've been waiting for forever. The whole day, everyone else has been ignoring him."

Karkat turned around at her remark. "What do you mean?" he answered her back in carapacian. 

She sighed. "People have been passing by for _hours_ ," she remarked, "but my husband is old. They think they ought to leave him in favor of attending to the younger patients." She muttered quietly, "now that he's retired, they look at him, as if all they see is some anemic old fart—thinking he's got less of a chance of passing through this, I guess."

Karkat looked at the Mayor, who was now smiling ear to ear from his spot on the bed. He spread out his arms wide, and Karkat tentatively stepped into them. The Mayor pulled him into a tight hug, and whispered, "thank you for coming, Karkat."

"You're welcome," he breathed into the Mayor's shoulder. The poor man smelled of nothing but hospital. 

His thoughts returned to their time on the meteor. In which this man had kept him company, and then proceeded to build up Earth C from the dust, and govern it with a benevolent hand. Hell—he’d even sent his kiddies to Karkat’s language class, before he lost that job. Karkat _owed_ him. Owed him _everything._ He only now felt like he was able to in a way, pay off some of that debt.

* * *

When Karkat returned to Rose's desk, she was surrounded by a sea of papers, eyes flitting from page to page of patients' case files. One hand was rested on the computer mouse, the other clasped a pen. 

Karkat silently took the seat next to her. He stared at the digital clock at the corner of Rose's scene, admittedly waiting for it to say 18:00.

Neither of them said anything, until Rose finally spoke up. The clock read 17:58.

"Are you bored."

She said it flatly, without looking up from her papers. As if she didn't expect the answer to be anything except “yes.” 

"No," Karkat answered almost immediately. He felt his stomach quickly twist. 

She finally looked up at him with her sharp-violet eyes. Karkat felt himself exposed.

"So you want to be out there?" she pressed further. She flicked her pen in the air, in the direction over the wall. That wide, open space where dozens of carapacian nurses—and Jade—whizzed between patients like bees. "On the front lines?"

"Well—" Karkat said. He knew he had to choose his next words carefully. "It seems like a cool job."

"Well, if you think so, you can shadow Jade next time you come in."

Karkat was trying to detect sarcasm in her voice. He didn't want to say anything in fear of losing his already tenuous position. Fortunately, he didn't have to. Rose spoke for him. 

"Six o clock."

She abruptly stood up, and smiled at Karkat. Her smile was in a language he couldn't understand.

"Down the hall, make a right, and you should find yourself back in the main lobby."

"Okay," Karkat said. "Thank you for everything, Rose."

"Don't thank me now. Remember, you're not on payroll just yet."

_Did that mean she was planning to hire him?_ Karkat didn't know. They exchanged one last round of tight, awkward smiles before Karkat exited the ER, making sure to replace the lab coat to the closet in the staff lounge.

When he walked outside, he tightened his winter coat further around himself. The hospital had become like an airport terminal—not only cold, but also completely in its own dimension, indistinguishable any other part of the world, at least until one steps outside.

John was waiting for him there, parked out front with the car. He waved his hand emphatically back and forth, as if he weren't the _only car_ parked _right in front of the hospital vestibule._ And worst of all, he was smiling ear to ear.

Karkat returned it half-heartedly.

“Hey, Karkat!” John grinned as he unlocked the door for him. “How was it?”

“How was what?” he answered rather absently.

John widened his eyes in sarcastic derision. “Duh,” he said, “How was your first day?!”

“Pretty good,” he replied. 

“‘Pretty good?’” John repeated dumbfoundedly. “What do you mean, _pretty good,_ what part of it—you’ve _got_ to tell me _everything_ ,” John said. He dragged out the word “everything” like a child pulling a wagon. 

Karkat shrugged. “Y’know. I watched her work. I met her patients,” he said. He didn't mention seeing the Mayor, because he knew that John would require a long explanation. And to be honest—Karkat wasn't much in the mood for talking.

John sensed this. He didn’t press Karkat much more after that, and the two drove home amidst a virtually impeccable silence.

* * *

When they stepped into the first-floor apartment lobby, Karkat felt it safe to initiate a sort of conversation again. “I don’t know about you, but I’m taking the stairs from now on,” he said.

“You won’t pass out on me again?” John said, with a dark joke overlying a scent of true concern. 

“Nah,” he replied. “Besides. This is the most exercise I’m going to get, if I’m going to be sitting on my butt all day at work.”

Karkat’s expression had settled into a grim line as he stood aside, hands in his pockets, by the time John unlocked the apartment door. The two of them shuffled in, still the victims of nonconversation. Karkat headed to the bedroom, presumably to take a short nap. 

“Hey Karkat?” John called out quietly. “Can you come here for just a minute?”

Karkat, already groggy with his thoughts again, turned around. He headed over to the spot by the kitchen island where John was standing. 

“I—stopped by the grocery store today,” he said. He opened the freezer door. “Heh—and now that you’re feeling somewhat better, I kind of couldn’t help myself.”

Karkat stooped to the ground, cocked his head and peered inside. Wedged into the first shelf on the freezer door, sat two pints of Callie Ohpeee’s Ice Cream.

“I didn’t know what flavor you liked, because I kind of bought them on a whim,” John admitted. He gestured his fingers to his temples, saying, “But I summoned your spirit in my brain, and picked out cherry for you.”

Karkat grabbed his tub out of the freezer and held it up to examine it. “What a stereotypical, hemospectrum-based assumption, John—tsk, tsk,” he joked. “Y’know, people always take digs on the fruity shit, but Calliope doesn’t make them half bad.” He set the container on the kitchen island and went to draw a spoon from the drawer.

“Ah-ah-ah—” John said abruptly, which made Karkat turn back around. 

John grinned. “Dinner first. I’m cooking tonight—it’s a surprise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos on this fic are always appreciated :D So many of my own experiences went into this chapter--the ER is an insane place 0_0  
> The next chapter of this I've been waiting to do for a while. So it should be interesting :B


	6. Confessions.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Karkat talk over dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hai again!
> 
> Warning: nothing but widespread escalation and projection from here on out. You have been warned.

"Food? That's your surprise?" Karkat snickered as John used his dorky Nic Cage alchemized oven mitts to extract a tray from the oven. 

John smiled shyly, his front teeth poking out from the grin. " _Dinner_ food," he corrected as he set the hot plate of _something_ casserole onto some pot holders. He straightened up and placed his hands on his hips. "You've been cooking every night for the past few weeks, and we never eat anything but breakfast food--I thought I'd switch it up for today," he said cheerfully. 

"What's wrong with breakfast food?" Karkat sneered.

"Nothing at all," John said with a smile as he extracted a spatula from the drawer and scooped out a serving onto each of two plates. "I just think you deserve to experience the vast scope of all the human food that Earth C has to offer, that's all."

"Dinner food it is," Karkat said, taking his plate and sitting down with it at a barstool on the kitchen island. John took his own and sat across from him. Karkat gave him a tight smile as John dealt out two forks. 

They began eating, without much conversation. Karkat chewed the casserole rather robotically--it was kind of chewy and rather bland--but it was something to do, since neither of them really appeared to be in the mood for talking.

"So, how was your day?" Karkat asked, trying to amend the silence a little. 

"Fine," John replied mildly, as he took miniscule bites of food. "How was _your_ day?"

"Fine." He was at loss for anything more tasteful than the casserole to contribute to the conversation. 

At some point, Karkat noticed that John had stopped eating. Karkat looked at him expectantly.

" _Not_ fine," John said firmly.

"How do you know I'm not fine?" Karkat asked cynically.

"Easy. You get these little dimples between your eyebrows when you're upset," John said pointedly. "C'mon--what's going on, did something happen at work?"

"Work was fine," he answered. He quickly corrected himself, "It was _more than fine_ , it was great. I--I'm proud of the work I did. And I could see myself working there for the rest of my life, if I could."

"That's really good, Karkat!" John's emphatic smile had returned, although there was something absent from it. It faded rather quickly as John continued, "So--I guess something else must have happened…?"

"I--don't know," Karkat admitted. "It’s just. Shadowing Rose felt-- _wrong_."

John's face waxed concern. "Maybe it was something she said? You know how with her most times, she says one thing and means another--"

"No, it wasn’t anything like that. I don’t think," Karkat muttered. "I mean--there was this one thing that happened--not with Rose," he clarified. "Maybe it's because--I saw the Mayor in the hospital, during my shift today. He had the virus. And apparently he's gone anemic too." Karkat stared at his plate, unable to do much but shove more casserole into his mouth. 

"He was in the emergency room?" John asked incredulously. "Oh, Karkat. I mean, I know how close you were to him,” John said gently. “That had to have been hard to watch.”

"I don't know. I guess. I mean, it was. But he could have been in a worse way, so I felt good about--being a sort of part of that," he mumbled admittedly, thinking back to the pee bottle incident. He added, "That was the best part of my day, actually." 

John gave a small smile. "Sounds like you made a good impact. What's wrong with that?"

"Well, nothing," he replied, uneasily shifting his butt on the barstool. "But I went back to Rose's desk, where she was doing the kind of work I was _supposed_ to be doing--and I missed it. And I was watching her document patients info, picking out medications—all the math, the notes, _it made me dizzy._ It made me dizzy thinking that I'll be doing that for a living, for the rest of my life. I'm afraid I won't be good at it, I'm afraid I'll have to do all this math and papers and sitting and being cooped up and looking at the same walls for most of the day, I'm afraid I'm gonna come home every day with a headache, I'm afraid that I'm gonna miss everything that goes on out there, that I'm never gonna get to be part of it ever again, and there'll be people like the Mayor that I don’t get a chance to help because I can never see them suffering—"

"Woah--" John interrupted-- "Karkat, please—slow down. You're scaring me."

" _I'm_ scaring me," Karkat said faintly.

Karkat took a breath before continuing. "I'm afraid that I don't _want_ to—be a doctor, like Rose. I wish I could just be out there, with the patients." He was too afraid to look up at John--to take in his reaction. "Rose says I ought to shadow Jade, in that case--she said that herself. But I can't tell if she's being sarcastic or not."

"If you're afraid Rose will be insulted, don't be," John says. "Maybe Rose's job isn't for you. Maybe you were meant to work with the patients, with Jade. Be a nurse, if that's what she is."

"Yeah. She's a nurse," Karkat replied. "But--what if I'm throwing away my shot, y'know? What if I'm never offered this high a position again. What if you getting me this job opportunity is all for shit because I was too stupid to take the high-ass position I was given,” he exclaimed. “I'm practically _volunteering_ to be paid less than what I would have if I just take the position she wants me to take."

"Well, you'll be making much more than me, either way," John said pointedly. "Trust me, I've done tax returns with my ecto-sister. She makes bank. You'll be able to pay for a nice apartment in either job."

"Yeah, I'm not worried about that," Karkat assured him. "But--I don't know. If Rose thinks I'm good enough to be a doctor, and that's a leg up from being a nurse, then I mean--that's what I should be going for, right? What if I'm passing up an opportunity, to y'know--" He grumbled as he found the words. "Be something great."

"Well, if you can't see yourself doing it, then it's _not_ the job you should go for," John said. "I was offered it too--and I didn’t think I could handle all the sick people. But you can--and you ought to do what you think you're meant for." he said hopefully. "And don't worry, you're going to be great in whatever position you're in." His smile looked like glimmering titanium.

John paused for a long time, while Karkat said nothing. "You know--higher doesn't have to mean better." He said it quietly--pensive, even. "If you're okay with yourself and where you are, then you're already winning, right?"

Karkat gave a strained sigh. "I mean—yeah. It's where I want to be." He thought back to the wide open space. "Seeing patients."

"Then I support you," John declared. "And Rose will too. I've known her for a really, really long time--trust me, she'll understand."

"I'll take your word."

John gave him a quick smile in return, before returning his attention to the smelly casserole. The two ate for a little longer in silence--the only sounds being the clinking of utensils. John was acting rather mechanical. There was definitely something that he wasn't sharing. Karkat laid down his fork on the table. 

In response, John lifted his face from his plate and crinkled his brow gently. He asked, "Is there something else on your mind?"

" _I'm_ fine," Karkat replied. "But now _you're_ acting weird. Spill, asshat."

John sat there on the barstool--frozen with a mouthful of food. He straightened up, swallowed, and spoke. "I went to the grocery store today," he said. He stabbed his serving with an irritated fork. "Saw Vriska in the dairy aisle. Eridan was with her."

Karkat was prepared to launch himself into a fit of rage, flipped tables and all. "Jegus Christ, John--that sucks," he blurt out. "I'm so sorry."

John shrugged. Mechanically still. "It's fine. He didn't come up in the conversation," he said plainly. "We did talk about you, though."

Karkat quirked his brow. "Me?"

"Yeah," John said with a sigh. "She asked me how you were doing. I told her that you were feeling much better, y'know, trying to make nice."

"Right."

"She asked if we were dating."

Karkat held his breath. "And what did you tell her?"

"I told her that I was your moirail," John replied. He stabbed another corner of the casserole. "She laughed."

"Fuck her," Karkat declared. "Who even cares what she thinks, anyway?"

"Well, I don't, _of course_ I don't," John answered quickly. "But I mean, she wouldn't stop talking, and she told me about—" He paused to regather his thoughts as the gears of his brain turned a hundred miles per hour. 

"She said that you only went into the pale quadrant with me because you meant to move it into the flushed one eventually."

Karkat's heart sank. Matespritship was a faraway idea and in truth, it was never his intention. Of course, he had his dreams. But he knew better than to pursue them.

"She does realize that _you_ were the one who asked _me_ in the first place?"

"Yeah, she knows that," John said. "But I mean—I don't know." He drew in a sharp breath. "What if I can't like you in that way? I don't even know if I liked _Vriska_ in that way, ever, or if I just saw her as a really, really close friend.” He concluded in exasperation, “It's hard to talk about.”

The faraway idea had shriveled up like a raisin within seconds. Karkat's heart crumbled. He spoke ashenly, "Well, if you don't like me in that way, then you don't like me in that way."

"I wish I could, though," John said distantly. There was a misty fog that kept John’s mournful eyes shrouded in mystery. "I wish I could be a good matesprit to you. I wish I could promise you that. But I can't."

Karkat was puzzled. "John--I don't think I know what you mean."

"When I was with Vriska, I was a bad boyfriend." He sighed, meagerly picking at his food. "And I don't know if I can be any better with you."

"John." Karkat started, before remembering what every online anger management class had taught him: _take a breather._ "How could you possibly have been a bad boyfriend when you were with Vriska Serket. _She's a bitch._ "

John didn’t lighten up--calling his ex-matesprit a bitch usually drew a smile out of him. But today it didn't even make a dent in his gloomy disposition. He exhaled and said, "Whenever we would be in public, she always wanted to kiss me and hold hands. When we went to the movies, she would want me to put my arm around her. And whenever we would get back into the car after going out together--she would get angry with me, and ask me why I didn’t know how to take hints.” He chuckled forcefully. “I didn’t know if something was wrong with me."

"Well, some people just want to save those things for the bedroom,” Karkat said wittingly. “There's nothing wrong with you for wanting a little privacy, John,"

John flinched at the mention of _the bedroom_. He stared at his food, as if contemplating eating another bite, only to be disgusted by the thought of it. "Only, I felt awful doing those things in private too." 

Karkat felt his heart sink. "Oh. John--this may be too personal of a question--and for the love of Gog, stop me if it is, but--did she expect you to pail too, the way she expected you to put your arm around her?" 

John nodded. "We did it. And it was her idea," he said, deadpan. "And I'm--well, I'm still not sure if I wanted to." 

Karkat reasoned, "Well, it's totally okay to regret sex. It happens."

"Yeah…” John trailed off. “But I'm still not sure if I wanted it _before we started_ ," he said. He inhaled sharply. "It was one of the big things we fought a lot about. Because she kept wanting to do it and I kept making up excuses--I'd tell her work was tiring me out, or that experiencing the game was still making me depressed, which put me _out of the mood._ " He made air quotes around those words. "Something like that." 

"Okay."

"And then she started to ask more and more often, almost every night--and it became a matter of when it would be most bearable. So one night, I just--gave in." John took in another sharp breath. "And I hated it. I thought I could make things better, if I just got it over with--but I only made things worse."

Karkat felt a lump form in his throat. The air in the room was numb and unbreathable. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, so he just stared at the fake marble that formed the kitchen island countertop.

Out of the silence, John's voice emerged as a half-laugh, half-scoff. "She told me I was really, really bad." His smile was porcelain, formed only out of pure humiliation. "We did it, I don't know, a dozen more times after that. And it wasn’t like just once a month or something, because she wanted me to _learn_ from her. How to _get better at it_. She even said once, that she thought she could fix me--"

"What the hell did she mean by 'fix you'?" Karkat flared.

"I don't even really know," John sighed. "She used to say things like, 'you just need to get used to the water' or 'you could be reaaaaaaaally good at this if you tried hard enough'." 

John’s mouth curled into a thin little scrunch, like he was eating caterpillars instead of casserole. "And eventually one day when we were fighting, I just broke out and told her--that being a better partner just wasn’t something that I wanted to work at anymore.”

He toyed with the food on his plate with no intention of eating it. “Things died down after that. I wondered why. Months later, I find out Eridan had been taking care of it all along. That's how she argued that it wasn’t cheating."

"What. The _fuck_ ," Karkat's voice bordered on snarling. "She had sex with someone who wasn’t her boyfriend, how is that _not cheating?!_ "

"Well, she had a point--that since our relationship wasn’t sexual and her relationship with Eridan was, that it wasn’t cheating," John explained tiredly. "And then she brought up the whole quadrant thing, about having multiple partners being part of troll culture--"

"Okay, no--cheating is _not_ part of troll culture," Karkat argued. "And we all _agreed_ it was going to be different when dealing with the humans--"

"She has _needs_ , Karkat. Ones I can't give to her--"

"--And you don't?"

John paused. His dampened gaze returned to his chilly food. "Not _those_ kinds of needs." He exhaled. He pushed his glasses far up on his forehead and rubbed his eyes absently. He replaced them and said gravely, "Is it--is it _that_ wrong to know for sure that I never want to do that again?"

"You never want to pail ever again?"

"No," John said affirmatively. "I could really do without doing it. It was _her_ idea in the goddamn first place."

Karkat began to notice that John seemed to be bending over backwards to find euphemisms for the word "sex." He said gently:

"There's a word for that, you know."

John kept his grimace in his lap. "Yeah. I know I'm fucked up and I've done my homework, and I know there's a word for it."

Karkat waited. John said nothing. Karkat smirked, and leaned across the table. "'Say it, John. _Say it out loud._ '"

"Asexual, goddammit, you asshole!" John laughed a little, but it quickly resumed to a grimace like a memory-foam mattress. "And I know what aromantic means too--I told you, I’ve _done_ my homework."

Karkat tried to chuckle, but it came out sounding like a forced sigh. "I'd like to say that I always knew--but, honestly I've only heard the term like, twice before this."

John gave a weak shrug. "It's fine."

"You know it isn't something you can control."

"I know."

"And it isn't something to be ashamed of."

"I--know."

"So--" Karkat asked tentatively, "what do those things mean for you?"

"And for _us_ ," John finished sorely. "I don't know. All I know is--I'm never doing that again. I still can't tell if Vriska was ever a romantic partner, or just a really good friend." He went on, "And I'm not going to call you my best friend--because that'll always be Dave, and that's something completely different in my mind," he said firmly. "But you're the one person that is closest to me. I care about you more than anyone, and--I don't want to string you along."

"John, you're not stringing me along," Karkat assured him. "You told me what you want and don't want up front. That's not stringing me along."

"But--" he began, rather plaintively, like a child. "I'm not going to hug and kiss and hold hands with you--I, wouldn’t hate those things--but I can't justify doing them if it keeps you here, if it traps you in this awful apartment with me, because you think, or because you hope, that something more is going to happen here, when you have to know that it isn't," John finished dolefully. "I wish we could do it, but we can't."

"Can't--what?"

"Be matesprits," he said brokenly. 

Karkat felt his heart threaten to escape via his mouth. "We're still moirails," he said weakly. It was more a question in tone than it was a definitive.

"Yeah," John answered. His gaze was crestfallen. "We are. And--I want you to know that--that's everything to me. That's everything I have. I wish I could be more to you, give you everything you deserve--but I can't."

John looked down at his food. Karkat noticed that his breathing had gone stifled and erratic. He was stifling tears, and failing miserably. The first legitimate teardrop fell onto his dinner plate, and he cringed. "Fucking crying in my goddamn food, _pathetic._ " He got up from the barstool and snatched up his plate with a _clank_. Karkat's heart sank as he heard John's handiwork hit the bottom of the trash can. 

"I can't ask anything more of you."

John turned around mechanically. His eyes, behind the lenses of his glasses, were dismal. "What do you mean," he asked lowly.

"You've given me everything," Karkat said. "You took me in. You gave me your place to live when I was homeless. Your medicine when I was sick." He swung himself around on the barstool in order to face John. "You gave me the job that was offered to you, even though I may not be good enough to deserve it." Karkat threw his hands up in the air, then let them fall limply back to his sides. 

"If that isn't through thick and thin, rich or poor, in sickness and in health--then I don't know what fucking is."

John held his plate feebly in his hands. He stood there, almost catatonic, staring down at his now empty dish. He wouldn’t look Karkat in the eye. _Couldn’t_ look Karkat in the eye. 

In an executive decision, Karkat hopped down from the barstool. He walked over to John, and took his plate placed it on the kitchen island countertop. He slipped his arms into John's armpits and buried his face into his shirt.

John didn’t move. He stood stiffly in Karkat's embrace, not returning it, not pushing him away either. Stagnant.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he said, voice muffled by his own soreness.

"John, you were a hugger when I first met you on that goddamn asteroid, don't bail on me now," Karkat said, his muffled by John’s sweater. 

"I still am, I just--feel bad," he said forlornly. "You don't deserve my shit." 

"You don't deserve to feel guilty," Karkat murmured. "You're my favorite person in the world, and I don't ever want you to feel bad."

Slowly, Karkat felt the muscles of John's torso twitch, then loosen up--then finally go slack. He felt John's bony chin poke the top of his scalp, his arms slowly rest on his shoulders, enveloping his back. 

"You're my favorite person, too.” Finally, John’s voice could be heard as a doleful whisper. “You know you're all I got, right?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! any and all comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated ://D
> 
> thanks for stickin with me ^_^ until next time!


	7. Giving it One More Try

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One week from Karkat's first shift at the hospital, he returns to the Emergency Room once again--this time shadowing Jade Harley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS/SEASON'S GREETINGS!!! Or even happy twelfth perigee's eve, if you're Karkat... ;B  
> Hope everyone's had a great day!! I bring forth to you, what i believe is the longest chapter here so far.

Karkat found himself facing those hospital double doors for a second time. 

Only he couldn’t go in. He knew Rose was expecting him--expecting him to shadow _someone_ , to go in there and _function_ as some sort of gear in the hospital machine.

But instead—Karkat stood alone in the staff room like a useless bolt fallen out of function. With the clockwork being as busy as it was, he supposed nobody really had much time to take breaks. He stood there for a moment, in the staff room. He stared at the door. _Stagnant._

Abruptly—somebody bound through that door with a sigh. Karkat visibly jumped at the sound, quickly turning as his heart raced at the thought of someone barging in on him while he was so deeply buried in his own thoughts. 

“Ah! Karkat, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” said Jade Harley, making a beeline for the water fountain and filling herself a cup. 

“Not scared. _Startled_ ,” he insisted.

“Fine. _Startled_ ,” she corrected, then took a sip of water. “You were here a while back, weren't you? How was your first day?”

“Good,” Karkat answered, picking at the edge of his shirt. “Tiring. Although I did a lot more sitting than I expected to.”

“Yeah, doctors do a lot of sitting,” Jade replied between slurps. “And calculating. And math. And deciding. Takes a lot of brains to understand all the little details, and then after that know what to do with them. You must be really smart if Rose thinks you’re up for the job,” she said, smiling at him.

Karkat weakly returned it. “I guess? I mean, my head hurts after flushing all those goddamn numbers through it.”

“Yeah. A lot of numbers,” she absently agreed.

After a long pause, Jade gulped down the last of the water, and crushed the plastic cup within her fingers. She bent over the overfilled waste bin to perch the trash gently on top. 

“I mean—I don’t know. I’m not that great at this, I don’t think.”

“Hmm, don’t be so hard on yourself. You were pretty good with the Mayor when he had to take a pee,” she said, lifting her sneakered foot to stomp down the overflow of the trash can. 

“I mean, I hope so. I wanted to be. I liked the fact that I got to see him,” he said. "I just think—" Karkat stammered, "—if I don't accept this job, if I settle for a lesser position, I'm practically inviting people to make fun of me. I'm asking for Rose and all her other doctors to boss me around and make fun of me. I'm asking for the rest of the nurses, the carapacians, to shove me out of the way and treat me like a kid. I'm asking for patients to yell at me, and spit in my face. I'm asking to be stepped on like dirt, and treated like shit."

Jade stared at him for a long time. "I'm not going to tell you you're wrong," she said lowly. "I can't. Because you're right. You have to be prepared to have everything expected of you, and then still at the end of the day get ridiculed for the job you do. And yeah. By agreeing to this, you _are_ asking for it," she said. 

She watched as Karkat hung his head. 

She held her finger up, and continued. "But you're also asking for freedom, and stability. You're asking for the opportunity to force the people you work with to respect you. You're asking for the patients to yell and spit at you—but you're also asking for them to call your name and reach out their hand, not to the doctor they never see, but to you, who was not only _asking for_ their shit, but the chance to be with them till the very end." She shook her head with a bitter smile emblazoned upon it. “You're asking for it _all_.”

Jade thought for a minute, grabbed another cup--filled it with water and threw it back like vodka.

Karkat watched her. After a while, he drew a deep breath-- “Rose told me that next time I came here—that I should shadow you.”

Jade straightened up from the trash can. Her face was deeply puzzled. “You want to shadow _me_?”

“I mean, I don’t know. Yeah, I do. And maybe I should,” Karkat said. “I like what you do.”

Jade tilted her head again. Her expression then quickly spread into a wide, welcoming smile—not unlike her ecto-brother’s at all. “Of course!” she exclaimed, grabbing Karkat by the arm and pulling him towards the staff room exit. “Ah, I have so many things I want to show you.”

* * *

With a swipe, Karkat’s ID badge prompted those double doors to mechanically creak open before them. In the most humanly cordial way possible, he let Jade pass through them first. The two of them sauntered back into the familiar central ER—the wide open space where chaos was always welcome to take to the main floor.

It took about twelve seconds for her to jerk Karkat backward by the shirt collar just before he was shoved out of a disgruntled Prospitan's way.

"Watch your back, Jack." That was Jade’s instruction. Karkat had momentarily forgotten the "don't stand still" rule.

It was then that it truly hit him--how much Jade and Karkat stuck out among the swarm of Dersites and Prospitans.

"Aren't there any other trolls who work here?" he asked slowly.

"Not on _this_ floor," Jade affirmed. "You're the only one. And Rose and I are the only _humans_ on staff."

"C'mon." Jade tugged lightly again on his shirt sleeve. "We got _a lot_ work to do today."

* * *

After getting briefed by the sour-faced Dersite nurse from the previous shift--Jade began making her first rounds of the day.

The first little cubicle that Jade led Karkat into held a very old Prospitan man whose face was clenched in pain.

Rose was already present--clipboard and all. She must have been making her morning rounds as well. Jade began pelting questions at the old man, before he stopped her abruptly.

"No, no--" he waved his head in a deferring gesture. "I don’t speak a English."

Jade's mouth shifted to the side disconcertingly. "Uh. _Tell me. Where hurting?_ " she inquired in broken carapacian.

" _It's my chest,_ " the man complained. He then launched into a fast, fluid dialogue in his native tongue. Jade’s eyes flitted in front of him as she struggled to keep up. Karkat watched her face quickly morphed into a dead blank.

Once the poor man saw that he had lost her completely, his face pinched in grumbling disappointment.

"Uh," Karkat stammered, drawing upon himself the eyes of everyone in the room. "He said that he's been having chest pain for the last couple weeks, but only when he woke up and went to bed. Now he's having it all the time, and it's gotten worse, and he says that's why he's here."

Rose blinked. "You speak carapacian?"

"I used to teach it," Karkat admitted.

Rose looked at Jade. Jade looked at Rose. They exchanged glances.

"Give him a diuretic, we've gotta clear that fluid out," Rose instructed. "Jade, we ought to run a troponin test, so we're gonna need a blood sample."

"Yup," Jade answered.

Rose turned to the patient. She said in a slow and very much fractured carapacian, " _We are going to give you a dildo that is going to help you pee, okay?_ "

Karkat looked at the old man. The old man looked at Karkat. _They_ exchanged glances.

" _A dildo?_ " they repeated to each other. Then burst out laughing at the same time.

Rose pursed her lips, but let it pass. Jade was already handing him a small cup of pills and setting up shop to draw blood. Rose exchanged a few final words with Jade, then left the room.

"Karkat, can you hold his arm still while I put an IV in?" Jade asked. Karkat nodded and gently pinned the man's skinny wrist to the bedrail as Jade poked the needle in.

Karkat observed her closely.

She popped the little green test tube into a bag containing many others just like it and held it out for Karkat to take. "Can you take these down to the lab?"

Karkat nodded affirmatively and did as he was told.

* * *

When Karkat returned breathless from his test-tube run, he found himself yet again, wading through the sea of rainbow scrubs. Trying to pick out Jade from the crowd. Gog, it was harder than it ought to have been. 

“Karkat! Over here, dude.”

Jade had popped her head out of one of the rooms, meeting eyes with Karkat. She motioned frantically for him to come over.

Karkat's legs leapt into motion now that they had a destination.

When he passed through the teal curtains, the first thing he was met with was noise. Voices shouting. Then, a rancid stench that twisted and twirled around the inside of Karkat's nose.

It was urine, and feces.

Two other nurses were scrambling about the room--rapidly tearing off damp and soiled sheets, and tossing them haphazardly onto the tile floor. Jade was supporting the arm of a frail, angry Dersite woman who was standing barefoot amongst a floor covered in dirty linen.

" _Gogdamn hospital,_ " the elderly woman patient spat at the nurses in carapacian. " _Doesn’t anybody around here know how to do their damn job?_ "

Jade obviously, comprehended nothing, effectively ignoring the woman. "Karkat! Hold onto her while I get some clean sheets," Jade ordered briskly.

Karkat nodded vigorously. "I have this printout for you from the lab," he said, trying to offer her the slip of paper addressed to her.

"Yeah, okay, just put it on the table," she called back as she jogged out of the room.

Karkat kept the woman on her feet as the other two nurse whirled and worked around him.

The old woman peered at Karkat with beady black eyes. She scoffed, saying aloud what she thought Karkat couldn't hear: " _The gods, if they may be. I prayed and I prayed and they sent me a grub boy._ " Her lip curled in disgust as she made an attempt to spit on Karkat.

The saliva dripped from her mouth onto the floor, and Karkat's eyes widened, as he was out of any sort of response--English, or otherwise.

Jade promptly returned to the room, carrying a huge stack of clean bedding--which she abruptly dumped onto the chair beside her. The other two nurses immediately grabbed them, draping the cot with poop-free sheets. 

"Grab a towel and wipe down her legs.”

Karkat snatched one and did so, bending downwind and drying the woman’s carapace.

He suddenly felt his hand go warm under his non-latex glove. He couldn’t feel it with the plastic barrier, but he knew it was wet. And dripping. He looked up at the woman, whose disdainful face was now looming over Karkat's kneeling figure.

He knew she did it on purpose, too.

Karkat pursed his lips. He took a deep breath like John taught him to do--and said nothing.

"Alright, now you've gotta help me get her back onto the bed," Jade called. She stomped on a button that made the bed slink down towards the floor. "Lower her here."

Karkat and Jade tried to lower the woman, but she resisted as much as her frail body could within his grasp. " _No, you're doing it all wrong. Ow, gogdammit, you're hurting me!!_ " She yelled louder, now directing her comments down the hall, taking advantage of Jade's deaf ears. " _This fucking pink-skinned whore isn't qualified to work here!!_ "

" _Hey, hey, hey!!_ " Karkat screamed back at her in her own tongue. " _We may not be Dersites, but we're trying to help you. You don’t_ ever _get to say that about her, you got it?!_ "

The woman blinked. For a split second, her eyes held the gaze that Karkat knew all too well--the gaze of one witnessing an Alternian native speaking fluent Carapacian. 

She cocked a single eyebrow at him. "Silly troll boy," she grumbled, but said nothing after that.

Jade looked at the both of them, horrendously confused.

"Let's try again--slower this time," Karkat said, looking up at Jade.

The two of them successfully managed to return the woman to her original position as painlessly as possible. They straightened up a few more things, stuck the woman with a bedpan, and moved on.

"What the hell was that woman even yelling about?" Jade asked when they were already hurtling towards Jade's next task.

"Eh. Nothing important," Karkat replied plainly. "Just a lot of screaming and cursing."

"So, you, ninety percent of the time?" Jade teased.

"Yes," Karkat joked back, playfully patting her on the arm. "Clearly we speak the same language."

Jade laughed aloud. "Honestly--it's so good that you speak carapacian. It'll do you so much good--I’ve picked up a _little bit_ , just by working here, but the Dersites and the Prospitans have different dialects, and it gets me so confused…"

"Hey--I can teach you a bit if you want," Karkat offered. "If a toddler can do it, then so can you. And I'm assuming you have a much larger cognitive capacity," Karkat jived.

"Heheh. Maybe," Jade replied shyly. "I just might take you up on that offer. How much are you charging?"

"Well, I used to charge 30 human dollars per half hour session…" Karkat teased.

Jade punched him on the arm.

"Ow!" Karkat exclaimed, rubbing the sore spot. "But for you, there's a one hundred percent discount. There, is that better?"

Jade smiled sheepishly, then patted the spot on his arm that would probably cultivate a bruise. "Much."

* * *

Jade arbitrarily decided to enter another room that she had not visited in some time--grabbing a machine on her way and dragging it in.

They entered a small cubicle containing a rather young Prospitan man with a nebulizer mask strapped to his face. Karkat recognized it right away--John showed it to him through an internet search one day; it was something they gave to asthma patients with a drug to help them breathe.

"Hello, Mr. BH? How are you feeling, better than this morning?" Jade asked as she rolled the machine up to the bedside. It had a blood pressure cuff hanging off the side, as well as a lot of other gadgets Karkat didn't recognize.

The man, obviously short of breath, didn’t speak. But he pinched his two fingers together, as if to say, "little bit" and Jade nodded.

"Ah. Karkat and I are going to check your vital signs, okay?" The young man nodded, and Jade took that as her pass to begin. She swiftly wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his skinny arm, and clipped a tiny monitor to his opposite index finger. She pressed a couple buttons, and the machine began to beep--the inflation of the blood pressure cuff could be heard.

"Karkat--write this down for me," Jade ordered.

Karkat scrambled to find a slip of paper, and ended up tearing a piece off his hydrocarbon study sheet.

"BP--one hundred over seventy. HR, one-oh-three. SpO2--eighty eight."

Karkat scribbled those down. From what he had studied, he had a faint grasp as to what they meant. But Jade wasn't done yet.

She reached into a slot on the machine, and pulled out a thermometer. The prospitan reluctantly took off his mask so Jade could stick it into his mouth. Karkat watched helplessly as the young man noisily wheezed out his breaths, feeling a twinge of empathy in his chest.

"Temp, 101.7. RR--twenty five."

Karkat wrote those numbers down. He had to remind himself to ask what those acronyms meant later—he knew Jade would tell him with a smile.

Jade turned to the man again. "Mr. BH. Have you ever been put on a ventilator before?"

The young man held up four fingers. _Four times._

"Alright." Jade said with a disconcerting twitch flashing across her face. "I'm going to have to check up on you later, alright?"

The man nodded. Karkat and Jade took it as their cue to leave the room, dragging the vital-signs machine out with them.

While they were walking, Karkat asked her, "Are his numbers normal?" he asked her.

Jade bobbed her head from shoulder to shoulder. "They're _okay_ ," she answered inconclusively. "His breathing is fast, because his oxygen is low."

Karkat asked, "Did that man have asthma?"

Jade pulled over to a computer monitor, and brought up her patient's file. "Yup," she said, nodding. "You right."

"John has it too," Karkat mentioned sorely. "Or at least, he did, until he entered the game."

"Yeah--he told me about that," Jade said. "I mean, it’s pretty common to find in humans, Karkat."

"I didn’t know carapacians could get it," Karkat grumbled lowly.

"They can," she said. She looked at his file again. "And it looks like his blood tests came back positive on the virus--poor guy. He's battling a gnarly bronchitis, and that's most likely what triggered the attack that brought him in. He's probably gonna end up downstairs, by later today," she added.

"Downstairs?" Karkat asked.

"The ICU. Intensive care unit," she clarified. "They'll be able to take better care of him than we can."

"Oh." Karkat glanced down at the man's patient file again. He was only nineteen years old.

Jade abruptly closed out the window on the computer. "Alright, I need to take a patient to CAT scan, but I still have more vitals to do. Do you think you can help me out with that?" Jade asked, looking at him expectantly.

Karkat stared at her blankly. "I mean, I've seen you do it about a billion times today. But I don’t know how to do them," he replied dumbly.

"Well, try it once, and I'll see how you do," she suggested. "I'll bet you know more than you think."

Karkat shrugged, and Jade pushed over to him the vitals machine.

Karkat dragged the machine into a room that Jade pointed to.

When Karkat drew back the papery curtains, he had entered a dark room of a sleeping patient who was thoroughly unaware of Karkat's presence. 

From behind, Jade vigorously urge him to go in. She stood about a foot away from the door, a silent observer. 

Karkat rolled the vitals machine into the room as quietly as troll-ishly possible. He tentatively wrapped the cuff around the sleeping man's arm, clipped the pulse oximeter to his finger, and counting his breaths over the course over a minute. He had to wake the man up briefly to stick the thermometer in his mouth, after which he promptly fell back asleep. Karkat quietly left, and closed the curtains again.

Jade was grinning broadly when she met him in the hall, a thumbs-up in each hand. "See--you know how to do it," Jade said, her buck teeth as visible as her pride. "Here," she said, tearing off a piece of paper from a pocket notebook. She scribbled down a series of numbers, tore it off, and handed it to Karkat. "Can you do these rooms for me while I take this guy down to CAT scan?"

Karkat smiled privately. He glanced at the tiny scrap in his hand. There were seven separate rooms that he needed to do. He nodded though, and took a firmer grip on the vitals machine.

Jade smiled back at him. "I'll be back to check on you. But you're not really going to need me, anyhows." And with that she sauntered off, leaving Karkat rowing his own canoe in the tumultuous ocean.

* * *

After about forty five minutes of ping-ponging from room to room on Jade’s list, Karkat was finally finished. With a pocket full of numbers, he struggled to find her. Eventually, he gave up looking and wandered off to take more vitals for other nurses—all of which were incredibly happy to have him do them the favor. 

Eventually in his wanderings he did meet up with Jade again. He found her sitting with a young girl who was curled up on a cot squeezed into the hallway, rather than inside a room. Jade had rolled over a table, and was sitting directly in front of the girl, grimly inspecting her patient file. 

Karkat tried to hand her the vitals slips. But the way Jade shoved them into her pants pocket indicated it was a 'later problem.'

"What's next?" He asked enthusiastically. His job was just becoming fun. "You said you needed to take a couple patients down to the CAT scan?"

"Well, I do," Jade answered modestly, staring at the young girl's file again. "But right now I need you to sit here and stay with this patient."

"Uh. Okay," Karkat agreed, taking Jade's seat at the table. He watched her fold up the patient file and briskly take it towards Rose's station.

Karkat turned back to the young Dersite girl. Her little pink wristband read _16 Y_. The girl's mother sat on the edge of her bed, a solemn expression engraved upon her face. Neither of them made eye contact with Karkat. In fact, the young girl stared into the distance--eyes seemingly trained on nothing.

Jade returned again. Karkat stood up almost immediately, prepared to receive instruction. "Do you need me to take more vitals?" he asked eagerly.

"No," Jade answered curtly. "Just--stay here, okay. Watch her. _Don’t_ go anywhere." She stalked off into a corner to talk to another nurse. But not before leaving the girl’s file open on the table.

PATIENT'S NAME: DS

TIME ADMITTED: 14:01 12/11/17

REASON FOR ADMISSION: ATTEMPTED SUICIDE

Karkat's head spun like one of those kiddie rides John had once rambled about. Karkat looked at the girl again. He could visibly see a couple of tears running down her face. Her mother looked at Karkat with disdain.

It finally made sense—why Jade had ever ordered him to _stay still_ in the emergency department, of all places. He was _supposed_ to be keeping this girl from herself. _That_ was his current job.

He knew that wasn't something he was going to be able to succeed at.

He looked away. He felt like making awkward eye contact with her was only going to make it worse.

Jade eventually returned, with another, older nurse to take over. Karkat gave up his post to him, rising rather robotically from the little plastic chair he was sitting in. He said no words to the girl, nor her mother. He didn’t really know _what_ there was _to say._

* * *

Jade briefed the nurse coming to take her shift—checking on each of her patients one last time. After that, she and Karkat each signed out for the day and returned to the staff room.

"So. What did you think?" Jade asked earnestly as she grabbed her lunch out of the freezer.

Karkat smiled. "I like this job."

"Ahh!! I'm glad," Jade exclaimed, showcasing the same buck teeth that she shared with John. "So you think you'll stick with me?"

"I'll have to ask Rose first to transfer, but I think she knows where I'm headed already," Karkat said through a private smile.

Jade shared it as she took her first bite of sandwich.

After it faded from both of their lips, Karkat spoke again, asking what he'd been meaning to find out for weeks. "Hey Jade?"

"Mm?" she mumbled with her mouth full.

"Do you have any idea what happened to the Mayor after he came here last week?" he asked tentatively. "Do you know if he went home?"

Jade shook her head. She swallowed. "He got moved to an inpatient floor," she answered.

"So--he's still here, in the hospital?"

"Yeah," Jade said with a sigh. "We put him on antibiotics, but they're only helping his bacterial infection," she explained. " _Not_ the virus."

"What's wrong with him?" Karkat asked slowly.

"Septicemia," she replied. "Among other things."

Karkat nodded without further comment. He knew septicemia was an infection that spreads to the blood. _And_ that it usually spelled bad news. He'd learned that the patients here almost never came to the hospital with only one problem--it was always the dreaded epidemic coupled with other things.

"You can come up and see him with me, if you like," Jade said, pulling Karkat out of his thoughts. "I usually go up to visit after this shift. You can come too--I bet he'd love to see you."

"R-really?" Karkat stammered ecstatically. "Are you sure it's okay?"

"Sure!" Jade exclaimed. "I'll have to clear it with his nurse, obviously. But he's usually up for any visitors—that's why his family is always around."

She finished her last bite of sandwich, gulped down the rest of her water, and threw out her trash. "Alrighty, then. Let's go!" she chirped as she sauntered out, leaving Karkat to only follow her to the elevator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: i thought it was worth mentioning that nearly all of the "patient-shenanigans" in this chapter were based on my own experiences working in a hospital, with little to no exaggeration. Crazy stuff, I know. If i could write down every insane story, i would--but then John's Apartment would be ridiculously long, and this chapter was already ridiculously long. 0_=
> 
> Speaking of length! John's Apartment is officially over 20,000 words, aka the size of a novella now!! AHH!! and to think this story was supposed to be a single chapter story. and now we're only a lil more than halfway done with this. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!! All kudos or comments at any time are greatly appreciated ^u^


	8. Gifts and Good News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **This month on John's Apartment:**  
>  Karkat finally visits the Mayor in the hospital. The Mayor comes bearing an incredible gift.  
> Karkat goes home to a frustrated John--whose attitude changes completely with the arrival of yet another happy surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe me if I told you that I actually hadn't realized that it had been nearly 2 months since I last posted....yeah. Time really gets away from you. But! in other news, John's Apartment turns one year old on February 21st! hbd, baby :D haha. hopefully I can get some art out to celebrate. either way, enjoy this Happy Chapter™ of john's apartment. (huehueehue)

As the elevator of the hospital ascended to an unknown inpatient floor, Karkat could feel his stomach churning inside his body. 

He was excited to visit the Mayor--he really was. But a part of his heart kept sinking in--asking if he’d he able to see him the way he saw all the other patients--if he’d be able to see him like _this--_ at all. 

Jade led him through the corridors of a much quieter floor. All the walls were pristine white, and all in all the place looked much cleaner and more orderly than the chaotic mecha that was the first floor emergency room. 

Still though--it was stripes of dersites and prospitans that milled up and down the hallways. Karkat and Jade still turned heads as they passed. Eventually, the wide halls emptied into an open space--the center of which beheld a fort occupied by nurses and doctors, each tucked busily into their work. 

Jade approached a nurse standing behind one of the fort’s large computer monitors. “Excuse me—” she inquired politely, “is Mayor WV available for visitors at this time?”

The woman stepped out from behind the monitor, and Karkat gasped. With her fuchsia scrubs, pointy-toothed smile and long, vertical horns—she was clearly no carapacian. 

“Feferi?! You work here _too_?” he exclaimed, his own goofy overbite of jagged teeth exposed as his chin hung agape. 

Feferi laughed. “I have been, yes. For quite some time, actually,” she answered, grabbing a gigantic file folder off the desk and tucking it under one arm. She turned to Jade. “As a matter of fact, I happen to have him as a patient today. His wife and grandkids are here, and he’s been expecting you.”

Jade smiled privately, and the two of them followed Feferi out of the central area and down a long hallway that looked just like all the others. She stopped abruptly and rapped three times on one of the doors. “Mr. Mayor, sir? I’m here to check on you--and Jade and Karkat have come to visit, can I let them in?”

“He says ‘sure,’” echoed a rigid voice. Karkat recognized as PM’s. 

Feferi bounded in, smiling as she approached the Mayor’s bedside. “Hello, Mr. Mayor! How are you feeling? Are you in any pain right now?”

He only spoke inaudibly in his wife’s direction. The Mayor laid in a half-elevated bed, his back slumped low among his flattened pillows. He looked round at the faces in the room. His gaze rested on Karkat. 

“He’s the same as this morning,” she spoke for him. “We’re still worried, that the last time he peed was a week ago.” 

“Yes, that’s the infection’s work, I’m afraid,” Feferi replied sadly.

“He says he’s surprised that it’s dark out already, since it’s only 6PM,” she added, smiling a bit.

“Oh, when I first came here, that was _so weird!_ ,” Feferi’s voice bubbled into laughter. “But apparently it’s a side-effect of the whole winter thing. Of the changing of the human seasons and all.” She nonchalantly tinkered with the machines crowding the bedside.

“He’s lived with the humans for years. And he _still_ hasn't gotten over 'the whole winter thing'.” PM looked down at her husband in the bed, who shrugged. They shared an inside smile, the way old people tend to do. 

“Daylight savings-time shenanigans,” Jade chirped. “What can I say?”

The room laughed. Feferi finished her tinkering, and left the room. Jade settled into a chair near the bedside, and Karkat stood behind the back of her chair. 

The room fell quiet as the Mayor spoke. In the silence, they could finally hear his low, raspy words. “You sleeping well, these days?” he asked Jade.

She bobbed her head from side to side. “I sleep when I can,” she said. “I’ve stuck to a pretty regular schedule, so far. That tea recipe you gave me really helped.”

The Mayor’s wrinkled face beamed with a proud smile. His wife’s reflected it as well. It wasn't long before the Mayor turned to Karkat. “You doing good also? Adjusting well?”

He responded, “I don’t really like the cold. It’s okay. John’s excited for it, since it means blizzards and all that shit, and he likes storms. I don’t mind snow, though. It’s pretty,” he said. 

The room laughed. However, Karkat could sense that the laughter seemed more “at” him than “with” him. He frowned.

“He means adjusting to your _job_. We’re done talking about the weather,” Jade snickered aside to him.

“Oh.” Karkat said dumbly. “I’m doing well. I mean, I love this job, so,” he said. 

The Mayor smiled and nodded. Before Karkat knew what was happening, Jade got up from her seat and motioned for Karkat to take her place. 

“You live with John now?” he said, almost too soft to hear. Karkat needed to concentrate hard--to read his lips, to catch his words before they were lost. He nodded. The Mayor asked, “On the North Side?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Apartment or house?”

“Apartment.”

The Mayor grinned broadly. “John is a nice boy. An even better man.” He looked at Karkat, then to Jade, whose shy pride was peeking out of her smile. “And you love him? Plan on sticking with him?”

“I’m definitely gonna stick with him,” Karkat’s smile emerged from his hushed words. “I love him more than words can say. He’s better than any moirail I could have dreamed of.”

The Mayor nodded wisely. “You know you two can’t live in an apartment forever.”

“I--we never really thought much about it.”

He declared in a low voice, “You’re going to need a real house.” 

Karkat cleared his throat. “I guess I’d just figured I’d keep paying half the rent on the place John’s got now,” he responded sheepishly. 

“You’ll need a place that belongs to your both, though,” The Mayor pointed out. He adjusted himself on the bed, and pointed across the room--to PM’s pocketbook, which was resting on the windowsill. 

PM rose from her seat to grab it, and began rifling through it. 

“My wife and I used to live at our own place, just south of the city’s central line,” the Mayor continued. “It isn’t nearly as aristocratic as some of the homes where you live--”

PM was suddenly looming over Karkat’s shoulder, with a small house key dangling from a Bahamas keychain. 

“--but I suppose you can drive by on your way home with John and see if it’s someplace you can think about taking. 25 Farfalle Drive, Can Town USA, Planet Earth C.”

Karkat swallowed the cotton that seemed to be clogging his voice and said, “But--you and PM are going to move back in there after you’re discharged,” Karkat said, overwrought. 

“Oh--” he began-- “We definitely won’t be moving back in.” PM appeared again at the bedside, laying a hand on his shoulder. “If anything we’ll both move back in with my son and his wife. It would be cruel if she had to care for me all by herself.” The Mayor took PM’s dusty hand and stroked his thumb gently over her carapace. “Owning that house doesn’t do us any good. But it will be worth a lot to you two kids.”

“But--you could sell it, or give it to one of your real kids,” Karkat said plaintively.

The Mayor shrugged, as much as his arthritic shoulders would allow. “All my boys and girls have grown up and moved out. And if we sold it, what would we do with the money? My wife and I are retired. We have no use for it. But you do,” he said. “It would have ended up in your hands anyway. But I figured you could use a home more than you could money for an endless debt of rent.”

“I--” Karkat stammered. He could feel his lip curling, and a lump working itself up in his throat. “Thank you--” he croaked out feebly before that lump completely overwhelmed his voice. The Mayor grinned at him, taking his hand and bringing him in for a hug before anyone could see him start crying. Karkat felt him pat his scruff of hair and plant a rough-lipped kiss on the nape of his neck. 

“Whoo--” the Mayor said as he pulled out of the embrace. He said sternly, “Karkat, you smell funny. When was the last time you showered?”

“WV!” his wife scolded. 

“Uh.” The frankness hit Karkat right in the face. But also because he struggled a bit to remember the answer to his question. “Uh--”

The Mayor tsked at him. “That’s a bad sign,” he chastised. “You can take care of others all day long, but at the end of the day, you still have _you_ to take care of as well, Karkat. When you go home today, you get yourself clean. You don’t have work tomorrow, yes?”

His face was growing hot with embarrassment, although he knew the old man was painfully correct. He scratched the back of his head. He was just noticing the feeling of dirty, unwashed, 3-day old hair. “No, I’m off tomorrow,” Karkat replied. 

“ _Rest_ ,” the Mayor ordered. The word echoed in Karkat’s brain, the same way it did when it came out of John’s mouth all those months ago. “Get some sleep. Have Jade send you my wife’s tea recipe.”

“Alright,” Karkat replied, laughing a bit in Jade’s direction. “I will.” 

Jade and Karkat stayed for a couple hours longer. At some point along the way, the Mayor’s son stopped by on his way home from work, with one of his toddlers tagging along to attack her grandfather with earnest hugs. Eventually, it began to snow without anyone realizing it--and Jade decided it would be best to wait for the city to clear the roads and lay salt down before driving Karkat and herself home. So another two hours were tacked onto the visit. 

“Finally,” the Mayor exhaled, looking out the window at the street below, dimly illuminated by streetlights but a salty path clearly chiseled into the the snow.

“If you were still in office, this would have happened one and a half hours ago, Pop,” the Mayor’s son grumbled. 

The Mayor chuckled. “Maybe so. But I’m not,” he replied cheekily.

The son chuckled darkly. “Ah, I think my time is up here,” the son said. “I gotta get this one back to the house, she’s got homework.” He grinned proudly at his daughter.

“Mmm, and I should probably get back to John, he’s texting me and I can tell he’s getting antsy,” Karkat said. 

“Be sure to swing by that house when you get the chance,” the Mayor winked. “Have a great night, kids.”

Karkat smiled at Jade, and she nodded approvingly. “I definitely will,” he said as he gathered his winter coat and backpack. “Good night, Mayor. Good night, PM.”

“We’ll see you later,” Jade called as she passed through the teal curtained door.

* * *

Jade, as promised, took the long way home through the carapacian neighborhoods on the central south side--weaving through side streets until she came upon 25 Farfalle Drive. Jade idled in front of the house, eventually chugging halfway up the Mayor’s long driveway. The two of them waded through the intact, fluffy white snow that was freshly laid upon the path leading up to WV and PM’s pristinely untouched house. 

It was a middling sized house--more wide than it was tall, with a large front yard and a wide porch stretching round the front of the house to match. On the way up the steps, Karkat noticed a neglected flower bed of dilapidated plants--due most likely to PM’s arthritis and advancing age. He withdrew the key from his pocket and screwed it into the lock.

Karkat felt like an invader as soon as he breathed in the stale air that filled the living room. For some reason he had assumed the room would be more--empty. In reality, it was anything but. The room was fully furnished. Not only that, but half read books were still lying on the table. Every grandkid picture was in its rightful place on the mantle. One of PM’s crochet pillows was even lying on the floor. 

As Karkat and Jade took a lap around the house, the pattern followed them. All the kitchen utensils were still in their drawers, and the cuttlefish that Feferi Peixes gave them as a wedding gift so long ago was still in its bowl--which was starting to smell. Karkat and Jade deduced that the fish was dead, and they flushed it down the toilet and cleaned out the bowl before mold could grow in its place. 

“It looks almost like--” Jade began. She decided not to finish her sentence.

“Like they still live here?” Karkat finished for her. 

“Yeah.” 

“I wonder if he’s sure about never moving back in,” Karkat said softly. 

“He seemed pretty sure when he gave you that key,” Jade snickered.

Karkat rolled his eyes, holding the keychain up to the light. The Bahamas keychain must have been from a vacation they must have taken at some point. It was one of the kinds that you would find in a tourist gift shop--

“I guess you’re right.”

Jade responded, “So. Are you gonna tell John about this when you get home?”

“I wish. I want to,” Karkat said. “But he’s been really antsy lately.”

“I’ve noticed he’s been weird too,” Jade replied. “He doesn’t call me much anymore--but whenever he does, he’s been skittish.”

“I think it’s this big project at work, that he’s stressing the fuck out about,” Karkat said. “I don’t really wanna put the pressure on him until it’s over.”

“Yeah.” Jade said. She gave the kitchen one last once over.

“We should head back.”

“Right,” Karkat agreed, trudging back into the living room where they started, with the crochet pillows and unfinished book. Karkat made the executive decision to pick up the fallen pillow and set it in its rightful place back on the couch. 

Karkat and Jade exited. Karkat wrenched the door shut behind them.

* * *

Karkat twisted his own key in the lock of his own apartment door. The sound must have alerted John, because he was off the couch in a heartbeat as he got up to greet Karkat at the door. 

“Karkat…” he could hear John say disappointedly while he stomped his sneakers against the welcome mat to shake the snow off of them. “It’s nine o’clock, dude. Your shift ended at four. Where’ve you been?”

“I already told you--Jade and I were visiting the Mayor,” Karkat said, turning around to face him. 

Karkat dropped his key in the bowl and looked up, only to be startled by John’s expression. His thin bottom lip was pressed into a tight frown. His eyes were rather distant--but something in them was suppressing frustration. “Last time you texted me was an hour ago, when you were leaving the hospital with Jade,” he said lowly. “Then you just stopped answering me--I thought that maybe something happened to you two, that you got caught in the blizzard or something--”

“Jade and I made a stop at her place, and I forgot,” Karkat lied. He wanted so badly to tell John about the house, he thought John would surely smell the secret right off him. “I didn’t mean to fuck you up. I’m really sorry.”

A flash of panic fired through his body--because for a moment, John didn’t seem to believe him. “It’s fine,” he said though. “Just--don't pull that kind of shit again. I thought you and her might be dead.”

“I won’t, I promise. I’m sorry,” he repeated as John went to collapse onto the couch. 

“There’s leftovers in the fridge, and your portion of the mail is on the table,” John said tiredly. 

Karkat gave an invisible nod, and went to nuke some of the leftover meatloaf and hash browns. When he returned to the couch, John had curled up on one end. Only his body was so long, that his figure occupied most of the sofa anyway. 

“Hey John--you sleeping?”

“No--” he muttered drowsily. His glasses were already lying upside-down on the coffee table. “Just resting my eyes.”

“Alright, whatever you say,” Karkat replied jokingly, as he sat in front of John’s feet. He absentmindedly forked his dinner, balancing the plate on his lap. He sifted through envelopes, slitting open one after another with his finger. Most were advertisements. A couple, newsletters he’d forgotten he signed up for. 

He came across a letter that looked pretty much exactly like a billing receipt until he read it more carefully. The heading stated, _DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY -- PATIENT NAME: VANTAS, KARKAT._ He snatched up from the floor the envelope it came out of. It was addressed to him, from Skaia City Hospital. 

Karkat set his plate down with a discordant _clank_ in order to give the letter his full attention.

The noise prompted John’s eyes to flit open. “Whass’at?” he asked through sleepiness. 

“It’s the results of my lab test.” John’s eyes widened, and his body jerked into a sitting position, so quickly it had to have made him dizzy. He grabbed his glasses and crammed them onto his face. 

Karkat read over the page again. He could feel John’s anxious eyes all over him, waiting for him to translate it. He looked up intently at John. “Remember that test I had a while back? Where they made me cough and then they tested the crap in my lungs?”

John nodded vigorously. 

“The results for the bacteria came back. It says right here. Negative for streptococcus pneumoniae,” Karkat said, handing the paper off to John.

John squinted at it, skimming until his eyes rested on the bottom line. “Negative is good--right?”

Karkat smiled. “Yeah. It’s good. It means no more disease.”

“Holy shit--” John exclaimed. “So, you’re good now, right? Like--it’s actually over?”

Karkat gave a small smile. “Yeah. Pretty much, I’m over the worst of it.”

Before Karkat could open up his arms, the upper half of John’s body had bolted into them. Karkat pulled his arms free so that he could give John a proper hug back.

He couldn't imagine how John’s current body position could have possibly been comfortable--but he didn’t question it much, since it was such a vast improvement over the dismal look he gave Karkat when he first came home. John was _definitely_ acting weird, what with going from one-hundred to zero in a matter of a half hour. But that was another thing he conveniently didn’t question. He preferred to let his thoughts drift to how surprisingly comfortable it was lying like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!!
> 
> note: i also confirmed the number of chapters that this is going to have (12). I've debated how long I would need this story to be for a while now-- but now I've got a specific plan and what's going to go down in the final chapters is pretty much set. Next update will begin the final 1/3 of the story. so buckle up, friendo ;B


	9. Close, and Yet So Far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat's life comes toppling down before him through a cascade of events that changes the course of his life, for better and for worse.
> 
> TW: a brief, non-graphic discussion about sex and rape is included near the end of this this chapter. Reader discretion is advised.  
> If you'd like to skip over that part and you're on PC, then Ctrl + F "another person" and stop reading there. Then Ctrl + F "familiar" and pick up at the beginning of that paragraph.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> This chapter has been long in the making. I have worked very hard to make this chapter the best it can be. I've been excited for it for a really long time! Hope y'all enjoy.
> 
> TW: a brief, non-graphic discussion about sex and rape is included near the end of this this chapter. Reader discretion is advised.  
> If you'd like to skip over that part and you're on PC, then Ctrl + F "another person" and stop reading there. Then Ctrl + F "familiar" and pick up at the beginning of that paragraph.

It was finally the long-awaited 4:00 on Wednesday.

When Karkat had finally checked out of the emergency room, he steered himself into the staff room to collapse into one of the little plastic folding chairs that nobody ever really had the time to use while at actually on-shift. He closed his eyes for just a moment--momentarily blocking out the overhead fluorescents that were flooding his overworked brain.

“Sleeping on the job, much, Karkat?”

Karkat’s eyes had only been closed for a second before they flew open again. He whirled around so fast in that little plastic chair, it almost knocked over. He met eyes with Rose, who was smirking a bit as she grabbed a cup of apple juice out of the staff fridge and stuck a straw through the top. 

“I was _not_ sleeping,” he asserted candidly. 

She snickered a bit as she held the straw between her teeth, sipping intermittently. “Don’t worry, I was being facetious,” she assured him. “I might as well ask you how your day went, since I know your shift just ended.”

“Damn right it did,” Karkat answered. “Thank God. Today was fucking horrible, I’m glad it’s over.”

“Well, that’s a lovely thing to hear from someone who’s been here for a total of three weeks,” Rose commented with a quirk of her eyebrow.

“You’re not getting me off call that easily,” Karkat said with a gruff smirk. “Anyway. First off,” he ranted, “nobody sent me the memo that today was ‘let’s-all-fucking-shit-on-Karkat Day. No--I’m serious,” he added, once Rose had started to laugh. “I’m not kidding, I got shat on by three separate patients today. I’m worried it might have been a coordinated effort.”

“Conspiracy?” Rose suggested jestfully. “They don’t call them Wacky Wednesdays for nothing, you know.”

“Second off,” he continued, “I was at everybody else’s mercy today. Jade was _supposed_ to meet me here, like usual. But I haven’t seen her at all,” he said. He was now staring intently at the wall ahead of him. He turned to Rose thoughtfully. “Have you?”

Rose frowned. She shifted uncomfortably. “I haven’t, really,” she said. “Supposedly she came in today for the first twenty minutes of her shift, then left abruptly.” He could see her eyebrows knitting together.

Karkat’s eyes darkened. “Oh,” he said tritely. “Does she--is she usually like that?”

“No. Never,” Rose said right away. She looked back towards the staff room door. “Listen, Karkat,” she said-- “My day doesn't end until six thirty. I would be there looking for her with you if it didn’t. If you have any luck finding her,” she said seriously, “could you make an attempt to message me? And let me know how she’s doing?”

“Yeah. Sure, of course,” Karkat reassured her.

Her lips spread into a thin smile. “Thanks in advance. Really.” Now it was Karkat’s turn to nod and Rose’s time to finally _clip_ and _clop_ her way out of that staff room. 

Karkat had already texted Jade asking where she was, no answer. Since today was the day that they usually went upstairs together to visit the Mayor--she figured she might have found a way to be up there with him. 

He figured she might be occupied. He made his way up the elevator to the seventh floor, weaving through white corridors until he came to the fort that once again, held Feferi, speaking briefly with another nurse on the floor.

Karkat approached the nurses’ station, waiting for her to finish--but Feferi spotted him before she did. Perhaps she had an eye for picking out the only trolls in the hospital. She turned a worried eye his way--excused herself from the conversation, and made her way towards him. 

“Hi, Karkat,” she said gently. “Are you here to see Mayor WV?”

“Hey, Feferi. Yeah, I am,” Karkat said conversationally. “I’m pretty sure Jade came up here before, so I’m looking for her too. Is she on this floor?”

Feferi bit her lip and took Karkat by the arm. “I thought you were,” she said--she was already gently leading Karkat over to a bench tucked into a tiny alcove in the hallway. “Come over here, you ought to sit down--”

“Feferi, you’re really freaking me out--have you seen Jade, did something happen to her?” Karkat said, breaking out of her grip and turning around to face her.

“Jade’s fine. Nothing’s happened to her. And yes, she’s up here,” she said. Karkat sank onto the bench, knowing that the Mayor’s room was just a couple paces down the brightly-lit hallway. 

Suddenly, as if on cue, the woman in question appeared under the blinding fluorescents in the narrow, whitewashed hallway. Jade was dressed in her signature green scrubs from the twenty minutes of work she disappeared from. The makeup she usually wore was rubbed off, and she looked at Karkat with a sympathetic expression. 

“Does he know yet?” she asked with a voice like reed.

“No. I didn’t get to tell him,” Feferi answered.

“What are you talking about, tell me _what_?” Karkat raged, feeling the fire of frustration start to burn up in his chest. He felt like screaming at the two of them. 

Jade and Feferi exchanged dark looks--as if debating over which one of them should answer Karkat’s question.

“The Mayor, Karkat.The Mayor,” Feferi spoke up in a level voice. “He passed away from complications this morning. I knew you came up here to see him. I’m so sorry.”

Karkat felt a wave of trembling rock his body--as if sopor slime were trickling through his veins. He wanted to say something, to respond--but his jaw was quivering so damn bad--or maybe the words just wouldn’t emerge. He stared at the tile floor as his peripheral vision swirled around him, coalescing into a cloud of white--

A hand on his shoulder grounded him back in reality. It was Jade’s. She was sitting on the little alcove bench next to him, even though he hadn’t seen her sit down.

“Breathe,” she said.

He did. 

His phone buzzed in his back pocket. It took a lot out of him just to reach behind him and draw it out. It was Rose. 

TT: Karkat, did you ever find her upstairs?  
TT: Better question--is she doing alright?

Jade was quick to read over his shoulder. “I can take that, if you want,” she said, probably sensing that Karkat didn’t know how he was supposed to answer. Karkat passively let her slip the phone out of his grasp. He looked over her shoulder as she typed:

CG: it’s me. i’m okay now, i’ve had time to process.  
CG: thanks for checking up on me.  
TT: It’s no problem.  
TT: Okay, that’s good. How’s Karkat?  
CG: i’m, not sure??  
CG: we told him just now

Karkat looked Jade in the eyes. His jaw was still quivering like mad, but he overcame it to speak up to her this time. “Rose knew before _I_ did?” he growled, looking from Jade’s stunned face to Feferi’s stunned face. “You all knew before I did, and none of you thought to tell me until _now_?!”

“Karkat, that’s not what we meant to do, okay,” Feferi answered meekly.

“No!” Karkat shouted, turning a couple heads of passersby in the hall. He turned to Jade. “Why the hell would you do that, keep this kind of secret from us! If you had only told me and Rose where you fucking were, we were right downstairs, we could have come up here to be there for him when it happened!”

“Karkat!” Jade rose her voice, in a way she _never_ did, to match his volume and quiet him. “You’re not listening to us. He went into respiratory distress at three AM this morning. You were probably at home, asleep. The only reason I was here was because I happened to pick up an overtime shift. I’m so sorry,” she said.

Karkat’s face depressed into a sullen frown. “You could have called me,” he bargained lowly. “I could have woken up, and taken a bus to come here.”

“It all happened really fast,” Feferi said mutely. 

Karkat felt his jaw doing the quivering thing again--but this time, a lump was forming in his throat as well. “I could have come,” he said quietly.

“There’s no way you could have been there,” Jade said. She threw her arm around his shoulder, and pulled him in close to her chest, just as the translucent red tears began to leak and stain her scrubs a dark brown. 

After he’d choked on his first round of tears, Karkat muffled into her shirt, “Can I still go in and see him?”

He raised his head for a moment, as Jade and Feferi again exchanged worrisome looks. “We’ve already given the body to the funeral home,” Feferi said quietly. 

Karkat’s lip twitched.

“But there’s a service,” Jade said quickly. “It’s going to be just family and close friends. You and John should come with us. You deserve a chance to say goodbye--I’m sorry that I took that from you.”

Karkat looked from Jade to Feferi, who both wore tight lipped solemn smiles. He nodded in tacit agreement.

“Come on. I’ll drive you home,” Jade said to him. 

Karkat sighed as he pulled himself up from his seat on the little alcove bench. Jade led them both away from what used to be the Mayor’s room--which now contained the staccato of another patient’s heart monitor. 

“Karkat--are you busy with anything this afternoon?” Jade asked. “PM’s at her son’s house right now, she needs you and I to come speak to her. If you don’t need to be anywhere right now, I’d suggest we drive over there after this.”

Karkat nodded. “I’m free,” he said. 

Jade smiled, and excused herself and her cell phone.

While Jade was making her call, Karkat stood by Feferi’s side. She was glued to the computer monitor yet again, jotting down notes in her new patient’s manila folder. Karkat was standing a few paces away--she barely noticed his presence.

“Hey, Feferi.”

Feferi snapped back upright, as if startled a bit. She forced a laugh--“Oh, Karkat. I didn’t know it was you,” she said. “Do you need anything?”

Karkat was off-put by her overly-forced cheeriness. “Uh, not really,” he answered flatly. 

Feferi frowned, and returned her gaze to the monitor.

“Except, wait, fuck, yes, I do need something,” he went back. He’d regained her attention. “Do you know the time, and the address, for the service Jade was talking about.”

“Hm.” She puckered her lips. “I’m afraid I don’t, sorry.”

“Oh. Well, is Jade picking you up and driving you there?”

“No,” she said, point-blank. “I’m only going to the town-wide memorial.”

Karkat blinked dubiously. “You’re not going? Why aren’t you going?”

Feferi sighed. She put her pen down, and went to glare at Karkat full-on. “Listen, Karkat,” she said gently, sitting down on a wheeled-stool. “The service Jade told you about is for family and close friends only,” she said. I’m not saying that I didn’t care about him very much. What I’m saying is--he was my patient. Somebody needs to draw the boundary between professional and personal. I need to keep a professional stance.”

“Fuck the professional stance!” Karkat retorted, turning a couple heads and drawing out a few gasps again. “Feferi. You were his personal friend. You gave this man and his wife a wedding gift. He went through the fucking _game_ with us! So don’t give me that ‘I don’t deserve to go’ kind of bullcrap, because it’s not true.”

“It’s not right,” she said meekly.

“I don’t care if you were his nurse, you were also his friend and you need _closure_ , Fish Princess,” he said firmly. “Now, I can get John to swing by your house if you don’t have a car.”

She stared at him intently for a few moments--taking in his words like she couldn't quite swallow them. “I--have my own car,” she said reedily.

Karkat nodded. “Good.” Karkat looked back, and Jade was calling to him, holding the elevator door.

“I’ll get that address from Jade,” he said, briskly jogging towards Jade. The two hopped in the elevator.

Feferi smiled with all her piranha fangs. She mouthed the words, “Thank you,” to him from her fort.

Karkat waggled his eyebrows at her in response just as the metal doors closed in front of him.

* * *

PM had left the door open for Jade, who had no qualms about walking right inside PM’s son’s house. 

As soon as they stepped into the foyer, PM hobbled in from the interior of the house, pulling both Jade and Karkat into each a tight hug. 

“How are you holding up,” Jade asked into her shoulder, as they lingered in an embrace.

“Not too terrible,” PM replied. “I’ve got a lot of good people around to help me out.”

Jade beamed as PM led the two of them into the kitchenette area. Unsurprisingly, PM’s children occupied a crowd of seats and extra chairs pulled up around the kitchen table. Her eldest son and his wife each bounced a carapacian child on their leg. It made Karkat smile.

What didn’t make Karkat smile though, was the only non-carapacian occupying the head of the table. A troll in a trim, bluish-green suit. She wore a bright red bowtie to go with a blinding white blouse. She was intently examining an array of papers that looked to be of legal quality.

“T-Terezi…” her name escaped in a faint hiss from Karkat’s mouth.

His former roommate, ex-matesprit-slash-kismesis-slash-whatever the fuck--was the _last_ person he’d have wished to see right then. He felt all the air being squeezed out of him, like one of those aerosol can things that John always ranted about. 

Her head turned slowly--as if she’d already smelled his presence. “Why, hello Karkles,” she said calmly. “Cute scrubs.”

Karkat was already seething. He’d been there only point-two seconds, and there she was, already poking fun at his new job. She was never going to give up her bragging rights as Breadwinner Extraordinaire--and Karkat was ready to choke her with her own bowtie because of it, all over again. 

“Um,” PM cleared her throat, looking baffled as all hell as she tried to diffuse the newfound awkwardness that had suddenly clouded up her kitchenette. “As you may or may not be aware, my husband left a will before he passed. I’d just like to go over with the parts that concern what he left Jade and Karkat. Our family hired a lawyer to help us sort through it all, and she’s agreed to meet us here, at the house.”

“Jade and Karkat, it’s a pleasure as always,” Terezi said, grinning with all her pointed teeth. She stood up to shake both their hands. 

Jade welcomed the firm handshake--she looked at Karkat confusedly as he stared coldly into Terezi’s eyes, letting his arm go limp in her palm.

Terezi turned her attention back to her array of papers. “Don’t worry, the will is laid out quite simply, and it shouldn’t take long,” she said. “I can start with Ms. Harley’s inheritance--”

She pressed a couple buttons on her open laptop--and the robotic voice of a screen reader began dictating the will aloud.

“A sum of 2,000 dollars, along with a library of books I have either collected over the years, or written myself documenting the early history of this great city, or our experiences in the Game that produced it--to possess and maintain, shall go to Jade Harley, so should she choose to accept them. It is with great faith that I believe her passion for knowledge will enable her to take care of it for me, for generations to enjoy. Should she not, the money and or library shall be bequeathed to my wife, PM, to be kept, distributed, and maintained how she sees fit.”

“I--”Jade said, stunned, looking from Terezi to the screen-reader to PM. “He didn’t tell me about the library.”

PM grinned at her. “I can store them here, if you like, until you can get yourself a larger apartment to keep them in. There’s a lot of great literature that’s accumulated over the years, in there,” she said. 

Jade beamed. “Of course, I’ll take care of it for you.”

“Very well, then--you’ll have to sign a few things to make it official,” Terezi said curtly. She gathered a couple papers to her two o’clock and handed them off to Jade.

“Thank you so much,” Jade said breathlessly. 

“You are very welcome,” Terezi answered. “Now, onto Karkat.” She tapped a bit on her laptop touchpad and the screenreader started talking again. Karkat followed its words on the monitor.

“Article II. Real estate. I give my residence, at 25 Farfalle Drive, and all furnishings/decor contained inside, unless otherwise specifically bequeathed, to Karkat Vantas, so should he choose to accept them. In the case that Karkat Vantas does not choose to accept or is deceased at the time of my passing, the above shall go to my wife, PM, to be kept or distributed as she sees fit.”

Terezi looked at him with blind eyes and a toothy smile. 

“Uh.” Karkat uttered. 

PM raised an eyebrow. “Karkat. You spoke with him. Don’t be silly, of course he wanted you to take our house. I’ve already been over this with you,” she said gently. “He wants you to be able to live in it. And so do I.” 

“I know, of course,” Karkat said. “I just--now it’s real.”

PM laughed. “As it should be. He thought you and John deserved to be happy--and so do I.”

“You heard the lady,” Terezi chimed in. “Accept your inheritance--don’t be stupid.”

Karkat looked around the room--at PM, at Terezi, at Jade, at PM’s son and back at PM. “We’re going to take good care of it, I promise you,” he assured her. 

She smiled at him. Terezi handed him a set of papers, to which he found each place to sign his name. He handed those papers off to PM and her son for the witness signatures, and to Terezi for the lawyer’s signature.

“Thank you very much,” Terezi happily said as she took the papers back and put them in a neat pile right in front of her. 

“You already have the keys,” PM said with a grin. “Now, the legal property should be transferred to you once the paperwork goes through.”

“Oh, and trust me, that won’t take very long ,” Terezi assured her. “I’ll make sure it goes through.”

Karkat didn’t dwell on Terezi’s unnerving helpfulness for very long. As PM’s son rose from the table, he held out a hand for Karkat to shake. From the handshake, he pulled Karkat into an abrupt hug. 

“I couldn’t think of someone better, besides my own brothers and sisters, to inherit my Dad’s house, y’know.” He clapped Karkat on the back, which garnered a round of smiles and laughter from the group. 

“We might as well move to the living room, where everyone can sit more comfortably,” PM suggested. 

As everyone in the family began filing out of the kitchen, Karkat spotted Terezi standing apart from the group. Her white dragon cane was trailing in front of her--gums-and all grinning at Karkat.

He could tell that she wanted him to stay back, that she had something to say to him. His eyes darted from the vanishing crowd to her stationary spot by the window. He couldn't escape her prying presence, and eventually he let his feet become planted in the floor.

When the kitchen was clear she did speak. “Karkles, there’s one more bit of business I think needs to be taken care of.”

“Wow. You haven’t used that one on me in a while.”

“Oh, you’re exaggerating. It’s got to be only a few months rusty,” she chuckled. 

“Either way. Back when you threw your Vantrum and stormed the fuck out of our apartment,” she continued obnoxiously, “I believe you left a couple of your things.”

Karkat narrowed his eyes, even though he knew it meant nothing to Terezi. “Fucking keep ‘em. We don’t need any of it,” he grunted, taking a step towards the direction of the door.

“Karkaaaaaaaat.” she dragged out his name in a way he just _knew_ was telltale of a certain spider-bitch’s influence. “You might think I’m trying to blackmail you, but I’m not. If you don’t come pick it up this week, I’m just going to have Vriska drive it all over to the youth center next Sunday morning,” she said flatly. “They’re taking donations, you know.”

“Whatever,” Karkat muttered. “You and Vriska go donate all my shit. Get a nice little tax return. See if I care.”

“Okay, okay--” Terezi said, just as Karkat was about to make an exit. “--Before you make a repeat of the day you moved out. I was kidding, okay? I’m not dumb, alright. I know you don’t actually _need_ any of the bullcrap that’s still over at my place, alright? Y’know, because you have John and the house now,” she said exhaustedly. 

Karkat stopped. He turned around to glare at her.

“Okay.”

“Yeah,” she said--she was picking at the cuff links on the sleeves of her suit jacket. “And yeah, I probably shouldn’t have told you that you’d be better off living someplace else if you couldn’t pay the electric bill. Even though I guess it worked out for the best, considering where you’re at in life right now,” she said. 

“If you can rationalize kicking me out of our own shared apartment, then sure,” he said, “Whatever helps you sleep at night.” 

“Of course, your moirail marriage is gonna be weird as all hell,” Terezi said, her smile returning just a bit. “But Vriska and I could have _never_ worked it out the way you and John did. However you did,” she added.

“I can’t believe she’s still your moirail.” He wanted his words to sound truly mean--but they came out lacking any of the vitriol they were supposed to have. 

Terezi shrugged in non-answer. She must have thought that she’d managed to patch things up between the two of them, because now _she_ made her first stride to exit the kitchen.

“Terezi…” He watched her turn back around. “Look--I want us to be cool again and all--I really do. But we can’t. What with everything John’s told me about Vriska, about what she’s already done to him--” He sighed. “It’s more than just weird. It isn’t right.”

There wasn’t a twinkle of recognition in her eyes that alluded that Terezi knew remotely what he was referring to. But the resigned look that followed told him that she’d accepted his choice. “Alright,” she said flatly. “You’re still free to swing by my place to get your stuff. That is, if you even care to pick up your nine-year-old wardrobe.”

He ignored her snarky comment. “It’s still _your_ place? What, nobody’s moved in with you?” Karkat asked.

Terezi cackled. “You think I have a problem paying rent without you?”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m kidding, I’m _kidding_ , Jegus Christ,” she sighed. “I didn’t mean it for real, I swear to Gog.” 

Karkat peered into the foyer. Jade had already left the door, which means she was waiting for him in the car, for God knows how long.

“I have to go, Jade is driving me home.”

He didn’t wait for Terezi to say anything else. He exited the kitchen--popping into the living room on the way out to let PM plant a goodbye kiss on his cheek. Then he met Jade at the passenger side door of her station wagon. 

Terezi followed. Her cane swiped across the packed snow--her cautious feet in dress shoes carefully felt for ice patches. By the time Jade had pulled out into the road--Terezi had reached the end of the driveway, waiting to cross the street.

Karkat couldn’t help but stare at her from out the passenger side window--watch her as she licked at the air, trying to taste if the road was clear to cross--

Jade made a turn and she escaped from view.

“Did you text my brother to tell him where you were?” Jade said, her nearsighted eyes fixed on the road ahead of her from behind her round glasses.

“Oh fuck--Gog, of course I fucking didn’t,” Karkat groaned to himself. He sighed, tipping his head back against the headrest. “Fucking hell. Why does he even get like that?”

Jade shrugged her shoulders, as much as she could while still maintaining adequate control of the steering wheel. “He’s just like that. He gets anxious. He assumes the worst,” she said plainly. “Don’t worry, once you tell him about the house, he can’t possibly be angry with you. You are finally gonna tell him about the house, right?”

“Well--I’m going to need to tell him about the Mayor first,” Karkat said uncomfortably, “before I tell him about the house. He was John’s exile. It’s bittersweet, y’know?”

Jade scrunched her lips. “I know it is,” she said as she pulled up slightly into the tiny parking lot surrounding Karkat’s apartment building.

She parked the car, and her round glasses gleamed as she turned to face him with a small grin. “He sure is gonna be psyched though, to move in with you,” Jade breathed, her elbow resting on the driver’s seat.

Karkat gave her a private smile, but said nothing.

She let escape a barklike squeal of delight. “Call me, okay? Let me know what he thinks,” she said, grinning as she unlocked the car side door.

* * *

“Hello?”

Karkat opened the door to their apartment and dropped his house keys into the bowl. He looked around their living room-slash-kitchen, and found nobody. The TV was flashing the evening news, but John was nowhere to be found. 

“John…?”

Karkat took off his coat and sneakers by the door. His feet were aching in their sweaty socks as they padded on the hardwood floor, searching for John. 

But he was nowhere to be found, and the lights were off.

Trying to push down the panic that was rising into his chest was like trying to unboil water with the heat still on. “John! Are you in here--”

Suddenly, the bathroom door creaked open behind him. Karkat whirled around, and sure enough, John was now standing in the hallway. He looked frazzled--like he’d been already stressed enough today somehow.

“Uh--hey. How was your presentation today?”

John stared at him for a moment. He took an oddly long pause before answering--as if he were questioning why Karkat was even asking him the question in the first place. He ran his hands through his already messy hair. “It wasn’t bad,” he replied plainly. He didn’t seem to want to discuss it more.

Delivering this news was not going to be easy.

“Hey, dude,” Karkat began gently. “I’m really sorry I’m late again. And that I didn’t text you.” He began moving towards the living room-- “I have a couple of things I need to talk to you about, we should probably sit down--”

“I already know the Mayor died, Karkat.” John spoke flatly, and he kept his hands laying limply in his pockets as he shuffled past him. He picked up the TV remote, waving it in front of Karkat lackadaisically. “It was all over the afternoon news.” He clicked off the TV with a hiss and set the remote down again with a clatter.

Karkat took a seat on the couch. John did not follow. He remained standing, arms crossed. Staring at the television screen, even though it had already been wiped clean of picture and sound. 

“I’m so sorry you had to find out like that. That’s awful, that they would publicize it, not caring about people who would take it hard,” he said gruffly. His voice became softer when John’s face didn’t change at all. “How are you holding up now.”

John shrugged his shoulders. He was still staring blankly at his reflection in the empty TV. “I’m fine,” he said. “I just thought it seemed really sudden, y’know.”

Karkat’s mouth twitched into a frown. “Feferi had said that he’s been sick for months,” he replied lowly. “Everyone, up on her floor, had been trying to get his body to the condition it was in before. But it wasn’t in the cards, I guess,” Karkat said softly. 

John’s lips tightened around his mouth. Teetering precariously on the couch arm--he looked over, and his startling blue eyes met Karkat’s with an odd sort of intensity. “So--you think it’s alright to let go of something if it wasn’t meant to be?” he said solemnly. 

Karkat maintained eye contact with him. It was the first time the two had actually looked each other in the face since six o’clock this morning. “Yeah, I do.” 

John sighed, took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes--as if looking at Karkat had tired him out. “Good, I’m glad you feel that way too,” he said, replacing his glasses.

“Yeah. Nobody should tell you how to feel about it. Because there is no right damn way to feel about it,” Karkat said. He felt the impulse to wrap an arm around John--pull him close like a good moirail ought to. But he was too far away, still perched at his seat on the arm of the couch.

“Is there--something else that’s going on with you?”

John bit at his lip. “I know about your inheritance too, Karkat. They read his will on the news.”

Karkat had to swallow that one down. He knew about it all along. 

“You--don’t seem happy for us.”

John bit his lip. Beat his heel on the side of the sofa. “I want to be. I really, really want to be.”

Karkat brought his legs up onto the seat, legs criss-crossed as he turned to face john. “I know, it's an abrupt change. That's why I didn't want to tell you about it last week, because I knew the idea of living in his house would freak you the fuck out, especially now that he's just died. I sometimes feel like that too john,” Karkat said. He was desperately waiting for John to look over and give him some sort of confirmation—but he didn't. “But he told me that he wanted us to have it. For the two of us. He said if we were gonna keep living together that we deserve to have a house and I think he's damn right.”

“Wait. You knew about this—the Mayor giving you his house—since last week?” John exclaimed. Abruptly he swung his legs around to squat on the edge of the couch. 

Karkat paused. “Yes,” he said carefully, and John moaned. “Hey, hey—I only knew and didn't tell you because you were so stressed about that, that thing you had at work! If I had fucking _known_ you were gonna learn about it like this, and then freak out, then I would have told you sooner!”

“God. You've known. Since _last week_ ,” John repeated to himself.

“I'm sorry John. I'm really fucking sorry.”

“Don't be sorry. Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything,” he replied. 

Karkat narrowed his eyes. “I don't know, because it kind of seems like you hate me right now,” he said. 

John sighed deeply—the full tidal volume of his lungs. “I don't hate you,” he said lowly. “I care about you, and I want you to be happy.”

“I want us to be happy too,” Karkat replied earnestly. “And John, I know that you feel bad accepting this offer, I did too at first. And I’m so sorry I didn’t talk to you before I took him up on it. I was afraid to accept his offer too,” he said carefully. “But I talked to them, he and his wife--they both _really_ wanted us to have it, and be happy.”

John bit his lip and stared at him. “I want _you_ to be happy.” Karkat watched as he specifically put the emphasis on _you_.

Karkat frowned. “Are you saying...that you _don’t_ want to move in with me?” he asked plaintively.

“I _want_ to,” John said mournfully. “I just can’t.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Karkat said frontly. “What the hell is holding you back now? If you want, I’ll call PM, and you can talk to her, and she can talk it over with you--”

“--That’s not, the problem, Karkat,” John cut him off briefly.

“Then what the hell is the problem?”

John rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “I’m the problem, that’s what,” he said mutely. 

“Okay--I can’t imagine what the fuck it is you think you’re doing wrong, but shoot, kid,” Karkat said with a touch of vitriol creeping into his voice. 

“I’m--” John’s voice wavered, as he tried to keep it somewhat steady. “I’m holding you back.”

Karkat’s face drew up like a drawstring. “I still don’t get it--” he said-- “I thought we were good. We’re a good couple of moirails--that’s why I’m still here,” he said.

“Karkat, stop it.” John’s voice was practically a pitiful screech. “Stop it, stop it, _stop it_. You are here because you’re lying to yourself. You’re here because you think this is as good as it gets,” he said. “You’re here because you think that you’re not going to find a matesprit. And I’m standing here, not letting you go out and find them,” he said miserably.

Karkat was speechless. He stared at John, who continued speaking with a lump in his throat. “That, or you’re here waiting for me to start loving you in ways that I can’t. Do things with you that I can’t do,” he said. 

Karkat finally talked back. “You made it clear to me from the very beginning that sex and romance were off the table, John,” he said. “I understand that, you know I do. I’m not waiting for sex. Or a sloppy makeout. And I’m pretty sure Rose’ll tell you that it’s not possible to die of sex deprivation,” he said, cracking a bit of a joke. 

John did not seem amused. “You have _needs_ , Karkat. You can’t just ignore them and pretend like you don’t. That’s just not how it works, and you know it,” he said. “I can tell you exactly what’s gonna happen. You’re going to have to have a matesprit or kismesis for that. And then you’re going to get close to them, and then you’re going to want to move in with them. I know you, Karkat,” he said, almost gentle. “You’re a hopeless romantic, you know that.”

“Moirallegiance is a kind of romance,” Karkat said, almost pleadingly. 

“Moirallegiance isn’t your happy ever after,” John said gently. “You’ve read enough books. It never is, is it.”

Karkat couldn’t think of any. “But that isn’t real life, John.” He said softer, “Do you not believe in us anymore?”

John blinked slowly. He may or may not have been trying to stave off tears--from behind his glasses, it was hard to tell. “It’s not sustainable, Karkat. You’re twenty-one years old, you have so much of your life to be living, and I care about you.” Swallowing tears now, he said, “so I can’t just let you live your life tethered to this goddamn apartment.”

“If you’re so concerned about me being happy, then do you think I’d be happier living in a house all by myself than with you?” Karkat argued. 

“I think you’d be more happy if you weren’t living in fantasy land with me, pretending that this moirallegiance could ever remotely qualify as a real relationship!” John shouted.

“You don’t think we’re a ‘real’ couple anymore.” he said flatly. “When did you start thinking that?

“I don’t know,” he moaned, “Maybe this was never a real thing, and we were just pretending it was,” he said.

The words were like pouring alcohol into his brain--stinging and sterilizing everything they touched. He wanted to say something, desperately--but his goddamn jaw was doing the quivery thing, twice in one fucking day.

“Listen, Karkat--just listen to me, please. There is no place in a relationship for someone like me, okay?” he said. He didn’t say anything more, and that was because Karkat could tell he was suppressing a lump in his throat. 

“That isn’t true, John, you know it’s not.” His voice was trembling awful--he bit his lip just to close his jaw.

“You’re denying it,” he insisted. “It was cruel enough that I wasted Vriska’s time--I completely ignored the fact that she had needs I couldn't fulfill, and that was shame on me, and I can't justify making that same mistake with another person.” 

“You did _not_ waste Vriska’s time, John--she wasted _yours_ and you know this!” Karkat said acidly. “There is a really fucking big difference between having needs, and rape, goddammit!”

John’s lips twitched rapidly before they opened fire. “That’s my own fucking personal business,” he retorted, “you have no right to just bring that up to talk about, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d just leave it alone--”

“I’m not gonna leave it alone!” Karkat exclaimed. “You told me yourself. Your first and only girlfriend, wouldn’t stop asking you to have sex. She knew you didn’t want to, but she kept asking, every night until you gave in!” 

“I did give in!” John exclaimed, struggling to top Karkat’s volume. “I didn’t know what I was back then. So don’t call her a rapist, I could have said no but I didn’t, okay? That was my fault.”

“It isn’t your fucking fault!” Karkat yelled. “None of that was your fucking fault, she made you feel guilty for refusing to do something you clearly didn’t wanna do--she pressured you, and that isn’t fucking consent, John!” Karkat took a couple moments to catch his breath--although not pausing long enough to let John jump back in. “That isn’t fucking consent. I don’t know if I’m still your moirail, but I’m at _least_ your friend, and I can’t let you think that what she did was remotely okay!”

Karkat had screamed himself to tears. That familiar feeling of hoarseness that predominated his teenage sweeps, when he spent most of his time shouting, had thickly returned. He was struggling to catch his breath for the first time in weeks. 

It was awful.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m over it. It’s over and done with,” John replied coolly. He placated a more sympathetic tone, saying, “You were right from the beginning, Karkat. I wanted to keep you here for myself. I trapped you here, and took advantage of you. And I’m sorry for what I’ve already done, but I can’t keep you here any longer when you have a life to live. That’s why you need to leave.”

Karkat was trying desperately to even out his voice, but it didn’t work. It still shook like mad as he spoke, “John. Are moirails anymore, or no? I need to know.”

“I never said we couldn’t be moirails,” he said. “I just said we can’t live together and pretend we’re fucking married, and make believe it’s the same thing that’s between Rose and Kanaya, or Vriska and Eridan.”

“But you don’t believe in moirallegiance anymore,” Karkat rebutted. “So what’s the point of being moirails with you, if it doesn’t mean anything?” 

Karkat was on his knees on the sofa now--prying the now turned-aside John for an answer. John kept his eyes fixed on the corner of the coffee table.

“I guess there is no point,” he said admittedly. 

John looked over for a moment. Made eye contact with Karkat. Then quickly turned his face away. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but it’s what I have to,” he said briskly. 

Karkat had no more answers for him. “I know where I’m not wanted, okay,” he said. “When do you need me to leave by? As soon as possible, I bet,” he snarked.

John blinked. “I guess, when does the Mayor’s house get transferred over to you?”

Karkat paused. He considered lying. But decided not to. “Terezi should be getting the paperwork through tonight,” he said. 

John nodded slowly. “Would you be okay leaving in the morning? You need to get the new house situated anyway, right?” he asked.

Karkat lifted his arms and let them drop aimlessly at his sides.

“If that’s what you need, then so be it.”

The two worked in silence. They scrounged the apartment for Karkat’s belongings, anything that was exclusively his--that is, not shared between the two of them. There weren’t many things. Just his clothes, and books. Pamphlets, from Rose’s office. Copies of his medical records, lab reports, a chest X-ray he had a month back. Notebooks full of study material. And of course, the Alternian romance novel from the public library that John had braved the rain to get for him. The one which, he didn’t want to look at forlornly for too many seconds before tossing it in the box. He still had his pride to protect, after all.

They piled it all upon the kitchen island. 

“Do you think that’s everything?” John asked. His voice was rather timid, somehow.

Karkat’s mind was far away. Packing up, the whole ordeal, was so surreal to him, he felt like he had to be dreamwalking. He was barely able to ground himself in reality for long enough to answer John. 

“If I leave anything, you can just drive it over,” he responded after a delay. “ I’ll give you my new address.”

John nodded with a curt expression. He made a move towards the bedroom--he was already in his pyjamas.

Karkat changed clothes quickly, and followed John into the bedroom. He was about to collapse into bed, when he looked down at a bare mattress.

“Oh fuck. I’m really sorry Karkat, I took the sheets off the bed to wash earlier today,” John said from across the room. “They’re still in the dryer downstairs. Hold on, I’ll grab some blankets and pull out the couch for you instead,” he said, hurrying out of the room. 

Karkat figured John was trying really hard in his last chance to be hospitable. 

John set up the couch for him--gave him most of the pillows and blankets in the apartment, like he always did. 

“Thank you,” Karkat said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, you just made my bed for me,” Karkat chuckled darkly.

John stared at his feet for a moment. “I’m doing this for you, you know.”

“No,” Karkat replied, “You’re doing this for _you_.”

John gave no verbal response. He handed him a water bottle that he’d fetched from the refrigerator for the night. 

“Sleep well, Karkat,” he said as he shuffled in his flannel pants back to his bedroom.

“G’night.”

Karkat sank onto the couch, and pulled the covers up over his head. He tried to get his eyes to close, but it was like trying to force two opposite magnets together.

Suddenly, he heard a buzz. His phone was lying on the coffee table, lit up with an incoming text.

GG: hey!!! is it too late for you to call me, and put john on the phone???  
GG: i still wanna know what he has to say about this!!!

Karkat’s hands melted into jelly as he read. He watched as the LED screen went blurry, then watery pink. He put his phone on Do Not Disturb mode and slammed it face down on the coffee table as quietly as he could. He wiped away the rose-colored tears with the back of his hand--trying to do that as silently as he could, too. 

Karkat stayed wide awake. He would have tossed and turned--but the door to John’s room was left wide open, and Karkat was frantic not to risk coming into his nearsighted line of vision. So he stayed--curled up in the covers, sweltering in his own body heat. 

At some point late into the night, Karkat listened as John’s snuffling in the other room steadied into the even beat of peaceful slumber.

The moon was shining white through the gap in the curtains--almost like she was a sniper trying to pierce Karkat’s open eyes and keep him awake. He distinctly remembered when she went away and was replaced by the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to try my hardest to update this story at a faster rate, so that the end of the story can evolve quicker--if everything goes right, the end of the story will be written and published in a few weeks, instead of a few months. 
> 
> I know it sounds hard to believe, considering my track record on updating, haha. But I'm really passionate about this story, and about ending it in the smoothest possible way.  
> See you all, hopefully next week!


	10. Mourning Routine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat reels as the morning after his blowout with John takes its toll. Once settled into the Mayor's house--by himself--he finds the company of an unexpected visitor.

Inevitably—Karkat tumbled into wakefulness the next morning. Upon waking, he expected to see John’s bed across the room from him, like always. But instead when his consciousness resurfaced, he opened his eyes to the coffee table and television.

Immediately, his heart threw itself into a panic. Briefly—then it quieted just as soon as it had kicked into overdrive. As his muscles emerged from their sleep paralysis, the events of the night before flooded into Karkat’s mind. 

His throat was still sore from his argument with John. The lump in his throat and the weight in his chest made it hard to swallow.

Karkat didn’t necessarily want to move. He only reached for his phone off the coffee table to check the time. _7:49 AM,_ the lock screen read. Had John slept through his alarm? He was still peacefully snoring in the other room. He was supposed to be on his way to work right now.

Karkat knew he _ought to_ get himself up out of bed. He knew he _ought to_ be dressed and ready for whenever John did decide to wake up, move him out, and go to work. He knew he had to tell his sluggish muscles to move—but he didn't. 

He laid there for a few moments instead, with his eyes closed. He thought, maybe if he kept them that way for a little while, he could forget about the coffee table and television in front of him. 

Eventually, his common sense got the better of him—and he threw the blanket to his feet and rose from the pullout couch. Shuffling into the bathroom, he fixed himself up presentably, and threw on the only clothes not packed away. 

His boxes were piled up on the kitchen island. He sat on one of its barstools—mindlessly munching on a Nature Valley bar. Staring emotionlessly into the granite countertop, he let himself feel like he’d been hit by a truck. 

Eventually, he heard a soft beeping go off—followed by rustling from the bedroom. _There he is,_ Karkat thought to himself. He continued eating his breakfast; only looking up when John finally emerged from the bathroom. 

John was dressed in a blouse, tie and jeans with a belt—he looked like he was about to go to work. Only, it was now 8:25, which means he ought to be _at work_ already. 

“Did you...miss your alarm or something?” Karkat asked him tentatively—even though nothing about his relaxed manner suggested he was running late. 

“Ah, no,” he answered, grabbing a bowl out of the cupboard and filling it with cereal. “I told my boss I was coming in at 10:00. That way I can drive you over and help move you in. Do you need me to help you put away your things, once we get there?”

“Oh—okay,” Karkat said blandly. A part of him wondered if last night even happened, what with how nice John was being to him. But that last part— “help move you in”—kind of ruined it. 

“And no—you don’t have to help me shelve anything. I know your boss is an asshat when you’re late,” he added.

John frowned. Then accepted his answer with a brisk nod. “Okay.”

They ate relatively in silence. When he was done, John soaped and rinsed out his bowl. Hopping off the barstool, he motioned to the boxes on the counter. “Is this everything?” 

Karkat stood up on the foot bar on his stool, peering over all the boxes with his newfound height. _It better be everything,_ he thought to himself. If he had to come back to the apartment to get something that he forgot, it would be, at the least—awkward. Especially with how John was now acting. He was just so—oddly friendly, to someone he was kicking out of his home. 

“I hope so,” Karkat answered flatly. 

“‘Kay,” John replied. “You ready?” 

_As ready as I’ll ever be,_ he thought to himself. He answered aloud, “Yes.”

“Alright.” John bear-hugged the first large box, and lugged it over to a travel dolly that he’d laid out the night before. The two stacked them up and secured them with a bungee cord.

Karkat reached for the handle of the dolly, to lug it over to the elevator. But John got to it first. 

“It’s okay, I got it,” he said. He was smiling. Karkat really was searching for any trace of ingenuity in that smile. He looked and looked but found none. 

When they reached the ground, the two crammed away the boxes into the back seat. Soon, they were on their way. John was in the driver’s seat and Karkat in the passenger—his job being to give directions to the Mayor’s house. Supposedly he should start calling it _his_ house now. 

It was awkward. And part of Karkat wished that he was in the back seat with the boxes rather than up front with John. 

When they got to the house, Karkat led John up the porch steps—each carrying a box, but Karkat also the Bermuda keychain. Karkat unlocked the door, and John followed him inside. 

They dropped their boxes with a twin set of _thumps_ on the rug of the living room foyer. With a grunt, Karkat stretched his muscles. He looked across the room at John—who for some reason seemed absolutely fascinated by whatever was in his own three-hundred-sixty-degrees.

It wasn’t long before Karkat put it together—this was Egbert’s first time actually seeing the house.

John said rather softly, “The two of them, they really fixed this place up pretty nice, didn’t they?”

Karkat took a look around with him. The morning light from the open window illuminated an open, empty room. Someone must have come back to claim items for other heirs. That left the beige carpet empty of most everything except for furniture. However, it wasn’t all empty. The modest wallpaper was dotted with picture frames, the furniture with stray momentos. This was probably what John was referring to. It was essentially a museum exhibit showcasing the life of an old married couple. 

“They did,” Karkat said, nodding. 

The two made several more trips down from the car up to the porch—with each pair of boxes doing an even better job cluttering up the empty floor, until John’s car was cleared out. 

After the last box made it into the house, Karkat didn’t expect for John to come back up to the porch, and follow him back into the house. Well, he certainly wasn’t going to just close the screen door on him. Karkat turned around, and made awkward eye contact with John. For a moment, it looked like John had followed him back into the house because he wanted to say something important. If he had something important to say, he sure as hell didn’t say it then. Instead, they just stared at each other’s startled eyes. Karkat was wondering why John wasn’t already in his car, driving away. Perhaps John was wondering the same thing. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you unpack all these?” John spoke up abruptly.

He’d effectively ended the awkwardness with an indubitably awkward question. “Nah, it’s fine,” Karkat dismissed him in reply. “I’ve got it I think. Again—your boss is gonna piss on you if you don’t show up on time,” he said, chuckling darkly. He then looked into the boxes. He was pretending to casually decide which one he wanted to start unpacking first. 

There was a bit of a pause—where Karkat was fake-examining the contents of each box, making like he was looking for something specific, and John was watching him nervously. 

John’s voice echoed again in his ear, “It’s not even a big deal, I can call on a favor from my buddy Tavros, he can cover for me—”

“—John, it’s really okay,” Karkat answered flatly. By now, Karkat’s attention had abandoned the boxes, and he was now looking John straight in the eyes again. “You don’t have to. Save that favor for later, and I’ll—” He could have strangled himself for almost saying, “I’ll see you tonight.” He swallowed his potential words. “—I’ll be fine. Thanks so much.”

John made a noise of protest, but it was a nonanswer. “Alright,” he agreed, maybe a little disappointedly. John gave a tight, awkward smile, before heading out the door and down to his car.

Karkat stood, his elbows rested on the porch railing. He watched John dig his keys out of his pants, wrestle them into the car door, and swing out of the long driveway. His pale blue car disappeared behind the neighbor’s brush.

Karkat stood for a moment by himself on the porch. Winter hadn’t quite bitten the dust yet, and he could clearly feel it. But he didn’t want to go back inside, not right away. So he let the cold nip at his ankles, below his sweatpants. It wasn’t until he painfully lost circulation to the tips of his fingers, did he give in and shuffle back through the door.

He dropped his Bermuda key chain in the glass bowl with a soft _clink_.

His stomach turned itself over when he once again, rested his gaze on the now-empty house. Mechanically, he chose a random cardboard box to begin unpacking. Not because he needed to, or because he felt like it, but because it was the adult thing to do. 

He started by stacking his books and papers into the bookshelf—which was now empty, since it was now void of Jade’s inheritance. He wasn’t really paying much attention to what he was doing—until his morning coffee mug somehow ended up on the goddamn bookshelf. 

Karkat quickly noticed, and immediately snapped into a state of semi-alertness. He grabbed the mug off the shelf, and tossed it into the box from which it came. 

Immediately after he heard the _clank_ and the _crash_ , he instantly regretted his decision.

Swearing under his breath and dreadfully peering into the box—he saw the mug’s cup lying at one end of the box, and its handle at the other. 

Karkat put his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes so hard he saw stars. This time around, he made no move to do the adult thing, and instead collapsed onto the couch. He was tired already, and it was only 11am. Even though he hadn’t slept much, it wasn’t a physical exhaustion type of tired. It was the kind of tired that came after an adrenaline crash. 

He realized, that it was because everything was starting to become real. 

The Mayor’s funeral was tomorrow. Jade would be driving him, because he didn’t have his own car. He’d be pretty much taking the bus from now on, to get to work and stuff. He was pretty sure his bus pass was stuck in one of the books he just put away, being used as a bookmark.

He stopped rubbing his eyes for a second, and suddenly became aware of his surroundings. He really didn’t like what he saw. Or what he heard—which frankly, was nothing. The house was dead silent. Not even the television was on. 

Karkat soon spotted the remote, which was conveniently on the glass side table. He snatched it up and turned on the TV.

It was tuned to weather on the ones. Karkat got a pang in his gut, the physiological embodiment of a painful reminder of John. He switched the channel to some random ass game show. 

He sank back into the couch, and let his eyes close again. Listening to the game show host talk already sounded better than the silence. This network wasn't too bad, really. This shitstain of a game show host wasn’t annoying enough to make him want to blow his brains out. He thought that maybe, when he came home he could turn on the TV, and just keep it that way from then on—when he cooked dinner, when he did the dishes. Before he slept, he’d turn it off—no point in jacking up the electric bill. He could just keep it on to keep him company, when he came home—

Karkat’s brain fixated on that one thought. And when he got a thought stuck in his head, he found it hard to shake it out. _When he came home._ When he came home tomorrow, no one would be there. He’d drop his Bermuda keychain in the bowl with an irritating clank in the quiet house, then go right to the damn TV, because of course, that’s gonna solve everything, that’s gonna keep the silence out as he lives there all by himself—

It wasn’t long before his hands were rubbing his eyes again. Except this time, it was because they wouldn’t stop coming up wet. 

He jerked his body up so fast he saw stars. He hustled over to the television, and briskly shut it off. 

Silence again. 

He collapsed back onto the couch, and curled up into a pathetic little comma, taking in the old people smell that was infused into the cushions. He closed his eyes again—but this time he couldn’t lie to himself, or pretend that when he opened them he’d be looking at the plaster wall in John’s bedroom again. 

He didn’t want to not be thankful. He didn’t want to be that asshole who makes it out like inheriting a house was a terrible thing. 

He just couldn’t help but feel like everything sucked right now. So he let himself lay there, for God knows how long. Letting everything just suck. 

Eventually, he did pull himself up off the couch, and return his attention to the box he was working on. He carefully shelved away all the other books—then took the whole box into the kitchen, and dumped the ceramic smithereens into the garbage can. 

His thoughts returned to Terezi, the person who’d given him the mug for his ninth wriggling day. He remembered that she still had a shitload of his stuff at her place. He took his phone out of his back pocket. Technically, they were still friends on Trollian. And the server had just added a new call function.

It was a stupid idea. Perhaps she and Vriska had already started cutting up his his five-sweep old collection of gray jeans for use as a grease rag.

But all he was doing really, was asking for his stuff back. When his impromptu move-out effectively ended their matespritship/kismessitude, they never got a chance to exchange belongings. It didn’t have to be like he was calling on her for a favor. She would just be throwing it out anyway.

He clicked the call button next to her handle before he could convince himself otherwise. 

She picked up on the third ring. Perhaps she did that on purpose, just to piss him off. 

“Karkat? Why are you calling me?” Terezi asked right away. Her voice was hushed—a harsh, low whisper very close to the receiver.

“Hello Terezi! I’m good, I’m trying to talk to _you_ at the moment, that’s why most people decide to call other people anyways,” he replied sarcastically.

“Okay—lemme be real with you,” she said, still whispering. “I’m at work, in the office right now. I’m not allowed to be on my cell phone. What do you want?”

“Sorry, I’ll try to make it quick,” Karkat said gruffly, slightly put out by her politeness. Maybe she was still in professional mode—she wouldn’t be this nice to him if she were off duty. “And yes, of course there’s a reason why I called you. Have you carted off all my stuff to the youth center yet?”

“No,” she answered swiftly. “It’s still at home. Crowding up my kitchen...”

“Alright, alright—” Karkat deferred. “Would you be able to bring it over here today?”

“I would be able to go home when I get out of the office, pack them into a cab with me and come over _later_ today,” she said pointedly.

Karkat sighed. “Yes, alright, we know you have a job, _everyone fucking knows you have a job_ ,” he spat. “Would you be able to?”

He could almost hear how put out she was. “Yeah, I can be there. I’ll be done around six tonight.”

“Thanks Terezi.”

“If only to get these stupid things finally out of my house,” she added snarkishly. 

“Good riddance, am I right?” Karkat said with depreciation.

“I think I have most of it in one place,” she commented. “I’ll see what else I can gather up. Bye Karkat,” she said. He knew she had to hang up before she got herself in trouble—so he finally let her go. 

So he was soon to have company over. He turned his attention once again to the boxes currently sitting in the foyer. He now looked at them with a fresh eye. This time _actually_ paying enough attention to see as to where the items were actually going, he unpacked them with a new vigor. He refilled the boxes he’d emptied with a few stray things he thought PM might want to keep.

He then cracked open some cleaning supplies, and dusted out the empty closet in the master bedroom, where he hung up his clothes and filed his shoes. He cleaned the bathroom, polishing the counters and wiping down all the mirrors. 

By the time he’d finished his cleaning tornado—it was already four-thirty. 

Karkat’s muscles were sore from all his lifting and sorting and reaching and rearranging. Back in the living room where he started—he swayed for a moment in front of the sofa, before deciding _not_ to collapse and fall asleep on it. 

Instead he hauled his aching body off toward the master bedroom for a nap. Maybe act like the _actual property owner of the house_ , instead of a guest that sleeps on couches. 

Sandwiched in between the covers, he let his tired body sink into the fluffy mattress. His brain was too wrung out to really think of anything at all—let alone let any thoughts of John cross by his mind. Perhaps it was a good thing for now—it allowed his head to sink underwater as he fell into the unconsciousness of a dreamless sleep.

* * *

A loud, aggressive knock assaulted Karkat’s door. 

The sound jolted him into wakefulness. His heart was racing like a revved-up motor. The thoughts in his mind lay askew as his brain quickly pieced the puzzle back together. _It’s Terezi at the door,_ he thought. _It must be six o’clock already_. He rolled out of the bed, ran a hand through his tameless black hair and hurried up to the door.

Sure enough—when he opened it, it was indeed Terezi. She had traded in her tailored suit for a pair of red jeans and a crop top with a dragon printed on it, and it helped make her, well—a lot less intimidating. Her cane was poised in the air, as if that was what she’d been knocking on his door with. There was no car in the driveway—only eight plastic bins abandoned on the asphalt. 

“Did you walk all the way here with those…” Karkat asked dumbly.

She audibly snorted. “Oh, Gog no. I tried to get the damn cabbie to carry them up to your porch at least. But he drove away before you came to the door,” she said sourly. “You’re just going to have to carry them up yourself—I don’t have two free hands.” She made a small air-circle with her cane. 

“Oh. Alright.” Karkat descended from the porch to start hauling the boxes in. 

Karkat fully expected Terezi to march right through his front door and start making herself at home. But she did not. She just stood aside, awkwardly letting Karkat pass as he made trips up and down the stairs. She looked at the screen door as if it might spontaneously combust any minute. 

“You can go in the house if you want,” Karkat offered as he trudged up the porch steps for the fourth time.

She froze—blinking for a couple moments in disbelief. “Uh. Okay,” she answered, and shuffled her way inside.

When Karkat was finished, he reentered the house, locked and closed the door. He found Terezi already sitting on the sofa—her cane folded up and balanced on her knees. Her neck was craned as if she were looking around—but Karkat knew better. Her pointed nose was slightly upturned, and he knew she was sniffing out the place.

“It still smells like them.”

“Good observation,” Karkat said with a hint of a smile. “It isn’t bad, really.”

“I like it.” She finished her sniffing. “Your floor is impeccably clear, besides that stuff I brought,” she observed. “Did John really leave you to put everything away?” 

Karkat froze mid sentence. The events of the morning replayed in fast forward briefly through his mind.

“I don’t really mind unpacking,” he answered briskly.

“Still—it looks like a hell of a lot of work,” she remarked.

Desperate to change the subject, Karkat asked her, “Do you want anything? I can get you some water, if you like.”

“Water sounds good, thank you,” Terezi said. “Oh, fuck—before I forget,” she broke out abruptly. 

She was arbitrarily pointing her cane someplace behind Karkat. “Over there, in the second largest box I think, is where I put your housewarming gift.”

“Housewarming gift…” Karkat murmured, as he proceeded to fish through one of the plastic bins. He sifted through it—extracting a large rectangle with a red bow ribbon tied onto it, squeezed off to one side. “This big-ass picture frame—is this it?”

“Yeah! That’s it,” she replied. “It’s for you guys.”

Karkat sat down in a chair across from her and turned it over. In an instant, his heart seemed to recede _even farther_ into itself. He was about to read it aloud—and he didn’t want her to hear the unsteadiness of his voice. He had to make an effort to conceal his solemnity—now that she was smiling expectantly right in front of him. 

“Moirail Means Fated,” he read out loud.

“It’s one of those stupid little cross-stitch sayings, the ones old ladies and Kanaya like to sew into pillows and stuff—only put into a picture frame.” She added a bit bashfully, “I found this one in Home Goods. I thought it would be cute.”

“It really is cute,” Karkat answered. He heard his own voice fall flat. 

Terezi said nothing as he stared down at the cross-stitch some more. The little pixelated flowers bordering the corners _did_ remind him of the decorative pillows on PM’s couch, before she took them back to her son’s. Karkat thought of how his house might never have anything like hers used to. He thought about it so intensely—he forgot to thank Terezi for the gift in the first place.

“Karkat, be honest with me. If it’s a bad gift, tell me, and I can give you the receipt to return it,” she said all at once. 

He broke out of his toxic train of thought. “No! No. It’s not a bad gift, Terezi, it’s not,” he reassured her falsely. “Thanks for bringing it.”

“Okay—so you don't like it, but it's _not_ a bad gift?” she said lowly with a touch of sarcasm. 

Karkat sighed, because he knew the gig was up. “It’s just,” he started by lying, “John and I are—kind of in a fight right now. Because of the house, and stuff. So looking at it, it’s just a little—hmph.” 

“Oh. That really sucks,” she responded tactfully. “To be honest—it’s pretty hard to believe. You two are such a stable couple.”

Karkat fought the urge to raise his eyebrows at the irony. It was hard, because he was fundamentally surprised to hear her describe them that way. “Really?”

She nodded honestly. “Yeah. Plus, it’s hard to imagine John having a fight with anyone over anything. Y’know, considering—he’s _John_.”

“Yeah, well,” he replied flatly, “believe it.”

Terezi nodded knowingly. “Vriska and I—” she began, “—ha. We fight _all_ the time.”

Karkat paused. He blinked, remembering what John said about Vriska’s relationship with Eridan. “In a—kismesis, sort of way?” he asked. 

“Oh— _God no,_ ” Terezi said right away. “More like in a, ‘we absolutely suck balls at trying to be moirails’ kind of way.”

“Damn,” Karkat commented. “That sure doesn’t sound like it’s a lot of fun.”

She only shrugged it off nonchalantly. “But Vriska and I—we have a distant kind of moirallegiance anyway,” she said, rather quiet. “Y’know—we don’t go totally overboard with the feelings jams and all that shit. We give each other space,” she explained. 

“Um,” Karkat interjected, “tell me if I'm being rude, but—I’m pretty sure there is no such thing as a ‘distant moirallegiance.’ The whole point is to be able to go overboard with all the feelings jam kind of shit. You’re free to correct me if I’m wrong,” he said pointedly. 

She just sighed out of clear frustration. But she didn't do much in the way of defending herself and Vriska. “I don't know. You tell me. _You're_ the moirail expert,” she retorted. 

“Well, say she and Eridan break up,” he posed. “Would you let her move in with you? If she had no place else to live?”

She snorted. “What part of ‘distant type of moirallegiance’ don't you understand?” she snorted. 

“Almost all parts of it, actually.”

She sighed. “She wouldn't move out,” Terezi declared. “Because—well. She’s the type of person that really likes having at least one of two things.”

“Money, and sex?” Karkat asked. 

“Exactly,” she said. “It's always one or the other with her. If she stopped getting it from him for whatever reason—I suppose she'd just move onto the next thing.”

Karkat remembered how Vriska had begun to go out with Eridan before she'd even broken up with John. It made him ridiculously angry. 

“But, to answer your question,” she continued, “—I'd probably let her have the extra bed. It'd be dumb to call myself her best friend and _not_ do her that solid.”

Karkat’s eyes went wide. “Honestly? With everything I know about her by now, even I wouldn't do that,” he said. 

“It's simply a matter of not being an asshat,” she explained. “Look. The thing with her is—” she started, “—well. You know her about as well as I do. She always has to be with somebody. She's gotta live with someone.”

“And you don’t?”

“No,” she said, a little too indignantly. “ _I'm_ not like her. I don't _need_ to have a roommate. I’m just fine living by myself,” she said. “But she’s completely different.”

“Okay,” Karkat said. “If you say so.”

“I _do_ say so,” she said. “But she's the kind of person that can't be alone. So if I’ve gotta keep her company, then so be it.”

Karkat almost laughed. “But there are a million other people to keep you company,” he said. “Take Jade Harley, for instance. She doesn't live with anybody. You two could live together. You could keep each other’s company. You don't need Vriska to do that job for you, she's too high maintenance.”

“I already told you—I'm not looking for anybody to keep me company, and I’m _not _looking for a roommate,” she growled. “Jade Harley might be in need of one, but I’m not. So stop trying to play platonic Cupid or what the fuck ever,” she spat.__

__“Alright, alright—I was just letting you know, in case you wanted to talk to her,” Karkat placated._ _

__“Good,” Terezi said. “Besides—I’m not the one who needs Vriska. She’s the one who needs me,” she said._ _

__“Needs you?”_ _

__“Yeah.” She said, “Maybe you don't know her as well as you think, after all. She’s more emotional than she likes to think she is. John, he was actually pretty good at counseling her when she got really—” she circled the air with her hand, in search of the right word. “—manic. But Vriska. When it comes to being patient with _other people_ , she's fucking terrible at it.”_ _

__Karkat fell silent. Terezi continued, “I remember this one time, when John got into this huge fight with his friend Tavros from work or whatever, about whether or not Gamzee should be invited to Rose and Kanaya’s wedding. And I remember being over their apartment for dinner one night, while he was yelling at her to defend him, since nobody wants a fucking serial killer at their wedding—and she says to him, ‘why does it even matter so much to you? You’re a bridesgroom, but you’re taking the job way too seriously.’ Honestly, I take back what I said about John not being able to fight with anyone,” she said. “Because he was so angry at her that night, he stormed out—it ended up being just Vriska and me, eating dinner alone.”_ _

__Karkat blinked for a while in shock. Not like he was surprised that she'd be so insensitive—but it wasn't like _John_ had ever mentioned any of this to him. “Yeah. She'd make an utterly fantastic moirail, if _that's_ what she calls a good shoosh-pap,” Karkat sneered. _ _

__“Exactly,” Terezi said. She must have sensed his disbelief, and explained: “Look. She's no good at being supportive, and I'm not someone who's in need of support,” she said. “She needs me, and I’m the only one who can put up with her bullshit. We're perfect for each other.”_ _

__Karkat put an exasperated hand to his cheek. “No. Terezi, that's not how it fucking works. Somebody’s got to be there to put up with _your_ bullshit too—and Vriska sure as hell isn’t gonna be the one to do it.”_ _

__“Listen, Karkat,” Terezi said. Her voice was going soft. “I know you’re concerned about me. But you really don’t have to be. I can take care of myself just fine.” Even though her eyes were not fixed upon him, Karkat still felt like her attention was set on him. It made him uncomfortable._ _

__“It isn’t fair to you,” he muttered._ _

__Karkat had expressed his disapproval. But Terezi just leaned back on the sofa, figuring that she had successfully made her case. “Don’t you worry about me, Karkles,” she said, chuckling with all her pointed teeth visible._ _

__Karkat refrained from responding to that. He deeply, truly, felt sorry for Terezi. Sorry enough that he actually pitied someone else more than he pitied himself, for the first time in twelve hours. But he knew nothing would change her mind. So he simply changed the subject once again: “Do you still want some water?”_ _

__She seemed interested enough in dropping Vriska as a topic. “Sure! As long as they left you at least one cup,” she snickered. “If not, then you can count me not interested.”_ _

__Karkat smiled tightly. “Let’s hope so.”_ _

__She followed him into the kitchen, where Karkat did in fact find, not just one, but a full set of cups. He washed one, rinsed it, and filled it with cold water from the sink. He handed it Terezi, inviting her to sit down with him at the kitchen table._ _

__She did. She was the first to make conversation there. “So, when does John get home, usually?” she asked before gulping down about half of the water._ _

__Terezi had gone deeper into the new house than John had. It was like slingshotting a rock into his chest._ _

__Karkat knew that if she stayed for much longer, she’d expect to see him. He replied nervously, “Uh—it depends on the day. But if it’s past six-thirty and he isn’t here, then he’s usually gonna have to stay till eight. Maybe even nine.”_ _

__“Oh, yikes, that’s rough,” she said with a lip curl. “What did you say he does again?”_ _

__“Um. I don’t know exactly what he calls it,” Karkat admitted. “But basically it’s his responsibility to get a feel for the weather, and then report it to the people who fly the airplanes, make sure they don’t crash into each other. The purpose is mainly to populate other continents on Earth C with living beings.”_ _

__“So he’s an air traffic controller?!” Terezi exclaimed. “He must be fucking loaded then!!” She started cackling. “I was wondering what the hell Vriska saw in him.”_ _

__“No, no, he’s not that,” Karkat said flatly. “He just makes predictions about the weather. He makes about as much as I did, teaching.”_ _

__“So he’s a weatherman?”_ _

__“He isn’t on TV,” Karkat said._ _

__She looked a little crestfallen. “Ohh. Alright,” she replied. She cocked her head and bit her tongue—pausing for a moment in thought. “Huh. That’s—weird.”_ _

__“What’s weird?” Karkat asked scrutinizingly._ _

__“You said he makes about as much as you used to, before the nursing stint?”_ _

__“Right,” Karkat said._ _

__“And his apartment, you guys lived like, Upper East Side, right? Above the central line, at least,” she asked._ _

__“Yeah,” Karkat replied. “I was walking distance to Central Park, and everything.” Karkat pressed again, “Why is that weird?”_ _

__She raised her eyebrows slightly. “He was paying for a _really nice_ apartment, for four months or something, all by himself, after Vriska left,” she said. “On _that_ salary. Assuming Vriska didn’t give him any money, and that I have my numbers correct—that would be pretty difficult, y’know.”_ _

__Karkat’s brain shattered, as he thought about it in that way for the first time. He had to admit that he wasn’t the most well versed in finance. He never even took a look at the bills. When he was sick, John didn’t want him to exhaust himself. And after he got well, he and John had a tacit agreement that although Karkat was willing to give John whatever cut of his check he needed to help pay for the utilities they shared—it was John’s job to sort it all out, since it was his name on everything after all._ _

__He was stupid not to think about where all the money was actually coming from. Until now._ _

__“Well—luckily he doesn’t have to worry about it anymore,” Terezi said laxly. Looking around at the kitchen once again, she remarked, “Y’know—this place is pretty nice. Even with being on the Lower East.”_ _

__Karkat had a rather serious look etched into his face. He was internally giving himself a punch in the gut for not being more concerned for John when they actually lived together. But Terezi must have interpreted his expression as uncomfortability._ _

__“Ugh, I’m—sorry,” she said. It startled Karkat from his train of thought. “I know I’ve been talking about John for the past ten minutes, what with you guys fighting and all. I’m sorry.”_ _

__Karkat took a minute to process what she said—before flashing her a closed-mouthed smile. “It’s fine,” he replied._ _

__“Heheh. Yeah,” she said, leaning back in her chair again. “Isn’t it always, with you, huh?”_ _

__Karkat’s heart began to pound against the wall of his chest. He wondered if somehow, someway, she’s already figured out that he’d been lying the whole time—that John had moved out, and everything. His eyes darted around the kitchen for any evidence he might have left in plain sight._ _

__“What do you mean?” he said, feeling like he was sweating his ass off in the chair._ _

__“I mean—” she sighed— “I have a lot of things to be sorry for, y’know.”_ _

__His nervousness and confusion were boiling hotter by the second. “What. Do you mean,” he repeated blankly._ _

__She rolled her eyes—bigger this time. “Are you like some sort of broken record? What I’m talking about is like, all the snarky ass comments I used to make about you. Back when you were still a teacher, and all,” she said._ _

__Karkat blinked. He was starting to become less nervous and more confused—although he thought less and less that Terezi was in the know about him and John. “What are you talking about?”_ _

__“Like…” Terezi wrung her hands in the air with frustration—it almost looked like she was trying to get her words in order. “Like, that one time—I came home with the groceries from the shopping list you made. And I said something like, ‘what’d you do with the kids today?’ And you I think were just washing dishes, fucking _minding your own business_ , and you said, ‘handwriting.’ And fuck me, I said ‘well I hope to Gog you weren’t teaching by example, unless you were teaching them what not to do’ and then I threw your list into the garbage can.”_ _

__Karkat had no recollection of anything she’d described. But he knew it could have easily been a conversation they had. It followed the pattern of how most of their conversations went when they lived together. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you upset because we used to bust each other’s balls all the time?”_ _

__She didn’t pause for a laugh. “It’s not just about the balls-busting, Karkat,” she said with a sigh. “What about that time when you were complaining about coming home exhausted—and I told you, ‘well, must be nice to work from eight to three and have summers off, since apparently child stupidity takes a three-month break when the sun shines.’”_ _

__Karkat pressed his lips together. He was hiding behind them a set of fully gritted teeth. He did in fact, remember _that_ happening. He was so pissed at her, that he forced himself to take up Sunday school classes and attend optional after-school faculty meetings, just to spite her. It was maybe a month before he wound up at John’s, with walking fucking pneumonia—a damn near good reason to be exhausted._ _

__“I think to myself, that maybe if I hadn’t said all those things, that maybe I wouldn’t have driven you out of _our_ apartment, like I did.”_ _

__“You didn’t _drive me out,_ ” Karkat muttered. “I ‘threw a Vantrum,’ then ‘stormed the fuck out,’ didn’t I?”_ _

__Terezi’s brow was starting to shrink guiltily. “Sure, that’s the way I put it, but I didn’t mean it. Back then, I meant all the things I said, but it was shitty of me to have meant those things. I know that now,” she said, raising her voice a little. “I mean it today when I say that I’m really sorry.”_ _

__Karkat looked at Terezi, who was facing his way—her eyebrows drawn in a guilty pinch. She was biting her lip. He looked into her eyes, knowing that they couldn't know what he was thinking. He thought that, in that moment at least—that must have scared her._ _

__“You’re very lucky that I forgave you a long time ago.”_ _

__Karkat didn’t know that she’d been holding her breath, until she abruptly let go of it. Her breath turned into a low chuckle and her lips into a smile. “While we’re at it—d’ya think you can let John know that I’m sorry for killing him with the jet-pack that one time?”_ _

__Karkat rolled his eyes. “I can tell him tomorrow,” he said. He didn't have to tell her that it would be when he went over to John’s to return his key. “But I’m pretty sure he’s already over that one.”_ _

__She snorted, and a soft smile played on her lips once again. Karkat shared it with her for a moment._ _

__“I can take your cup,” he then said, holding out his hand for it._ _

__She located her cup on the table, and pulled it close to her. She let her free hand hang suspended in the air. Before she had to swat at the air for too long, Karkat found her hand with his. Terezi transferred the cup to his grasp, and subsequently stood up._ _

__He followed suit. “Do you need me to call a cab for you?”_ _

__Unfolding her cane again, she shook her head. She wiggled her phone for him to see, which was open to the Uber app. “I already did. It’s waiting outside for me.” When Karkat raised an eyebrow, she said with a smirk: “C’mon. We both know I wouldn’t have broken down to say all that mushy stuff if I didn’t have a little time constraint.”_ _

__He smiled—if only because the move was so very _Terezi_. He walked her to the door—and sure enough, a slick black Nissan was bidding her. He watched her hop into the passenger seat. While standing outside on the porch, he watched a car drive away for the second time that day. Only right now, it didn't feel like the car had his heart still attached to the bumper. _ _

__When she too had disappeared behind the foliage, Karkat retreated back inside the house._ _

__With his stuff from John’s already put away and Terezi’s bins sitting in the foyer, he admitted that the house looked much more livable._ _

__Sitting down in a rather uncomfortable chair—he replayed Terezi’s visit in his mind. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for leaving her alone in their old apartment. He thought that maybe, just maybe—she would have walked away from Vriska if he hadn't been stupid enough to walk out of her life without saying goodbye._ _

__He eyed the cross stitch in the frame. He remembered just now, that the last words he said to John when he left weren’t _goodbye_. The thought elicited a tiny twinge from his heart. _ _

__He tucked the cross-stitch away into one of the boxes he’d filled—and headed off towards the bedroom._ _

__He plunked the whole box onto his bed—still not quite sure where he should put it, or the cross-stitch. He looked to the antique analog clock on the wall._ _

__It was just after seven o’clock. He knew he wouldn’t be able to go to bed until at least eleven. He didn’t have to wake up early the next day—he would be attending the private burial in the morning, not work. And then he had to stop by John’s in the afternoon, to return his key. He sat on the edge of the bed—letting the thought churn his stomach._ _

__At the memorial—everyone would become suspicious if John and Karkat didn’t act like they were still together. It wouldn’t be very pale for them to stand on opposite sides of the memorial—acting like total strangers._ _

__He hoped that wouldn’t be the case tomorrow._ _

__Karkat peered back into the box beside him. This was where he’d stowed away most of the Mayor’s personal momentos and belongings. He wanted to put it on the floor, so he could get in bed—but it was rather large, and the room was small. He slid open the closet, and pushed the box into a corner, out of the walkway. But as soon as he closed the door—it all felt wrong._ _

__He flung the closet back open. Should Karkat really just be able to tuck him away? Put the Mayor in a place that didn't inconvenience him? It didn't just _feel_ wrong, it _was_ wrong. _ _

__He was so upset at himself—he would have cried, if his eyes hadn’t already been wrung out like a dry sponge._ _

__He pulled the box out of the closet again, and sat on the floor next to it. One by one, he emptied its contents onto the rug._ _

__Picture frames. A lot of those. A painted ceramic plate, some bead jewelry made by his grandkids. A pressed flower PM had given him with the “Happy Father’s Day!” tag still on._ _

__An empty shoe rack lay on the floor of the closet. He pulled it front and center, and before he knew it, he had begun to stack the momentos onto where the shoes should be._ _

__He turned over a hand-woven picnic basket, and stacked the largest picture frames on top of it, as well as the flower. He arranged the smaller items around, so that the jewelry, as well as the autograph notepad from Disney World, and Rosary beads lay on the ceramic plate. The stuffed kitten and stack of birthday cards went on the opposite side of the picnic basket. Many of the smaller picture frames sat snug in the bottom row._ _

__The last thing left unarranged, Karkat had admittedly been avoiding. He ended up placing Terezi’s cross-stitch frame beside the shoe rack—leaning up against the wall, yet still clearly visible._ _

___Moirail Means Fated._ _ _

__He almost felt like he was mourning John just as much as he was the Mayor._ _

__He sat there for a moment in front of the makeshift altar, silently remembering the two of them. Only one felt slightly harder to permanently let go of—and that person would not be mourned tomorrow._ _

__Only today._ _

__He closed his eyes, if only for a little while. When he opened them again, and checked back on the analog clock—it was already past eleven-thirty._ _

__Karkat got up from the floor. He refrained from closing the closet door. He quickly ran through his bedtime routine, and settled into bed by himself. Shutting his eyes—he cut any thoughts of tomorrow away from his mind._ _

__Before his eyes could even sufficiently adjust to the darkness, Karkat had fallen into a heavy sleep._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple milestones have been reached with this chapter!!  
>  **Number 1:** This chapter has bumped the word count of John's Apartment to 40,000--which is the minimum cutoff for a novel. So, readers who have stuck with me up until this point, congratulations, you have read a book-length story.  
>  **Number 2:** This story has reached 100+ kudos!! AHHH!!  
>  I never would have thought that JA would go this far. I have the readers of this story to thank. Thank you for sticking with me up until this point.
> 
> I think after Chapter 12 goes up, **I will post an Author's Notes (Ch13)** which will be just me talking about the story. Then I'll **open up for questions** after the story ends. Submissions can go through the AO3 comments section or my tumblr **(emptybattlefield.tumblr.com)**. Anons are welcome. Hate is not.
> 
> See you all next week!!


	11. Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat, along with the rest of the cast, attend the Mayor's funeral service. Karkat finally returns to John's place to return his key, only to be swept up into a much larger problem. One in which he is forced to choose between voicing his thoughts on their moirallegiance, or forever holding his peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 6/12 everyone!! This is a very long chapter, which will be succeeded by another, slightly less long chapter. Enjoy :B

It was eleven o’clock the following morning. And Karkat was staring at a hole in the ground. 

At the Mayor’s private memorial, he wasn’t the only one. The crowd of black-clad mourners had formed a tight circle around said hole, and Karkat shared a glance with many familiar faces across the casket that was being lowered into the ground. Kanaya and Rose stood arm in arm—next to Jade, who was next to Feferi—who Karkat had successfully convinced to attend.

He’d caught Feferi’s eye at some point—to which she had given him a shy smile from afar. Karkat had returned it warmly.

The only one who Karkat _couldn’t_ see though, was John. However, Karkat could feel him breathing down his neck. Tacitly, the two of them agreed that it’d be best to stand together during the service so that the people who knew about their moirallegiance would not be inclined to ask questions. It would hopefully make up for the fact that they came in separate cars, even if they didn’t say a word to one another.

Which, they didn’t.

Terezi had clearly noticed their behavior too. Perhaps she still believed that he and John were in the middle of an argument so intense that they couldn’t even come to a funeral together. Or maybe she had figured them out after all—and had just chosen to say nothing.

The whole ceremony, in general, was rife with human tradition that Karkat didn’t understand. It was nothing like the corpse party he expected to attend. However—even though he didn’t _quite_ understand whose idea it was to toss flowers onto the casket while it was in the ground or to hire a stranger in a white collar to say prayers for him—it still felt good to be there. He spoke about all this to Jade. After the formal part of the memorial was over, the attending party was allowed time to talk freely with one another while standing on the wet, dewy grass of the sunlit cemetery. 

“So—how are you holding up, anyways,” Karkat asked. In the bright cold, his breath became a fog surrounding his mouth as he spoke. Jade had been in close contact with PM and the family in these past few days. She’d been the one to help make plans for the entire service. He couldn’t imagine how tired she was.

He could tell just how much she wanted to hide her exhaustion with a smile. Today, she just couldn’t muster up much of one. She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Not bad,” she replied simply. “Better than Wednesday, at least. PM—she’s a lot more _affected_ than she’d expected to be, I think. To be honest, I think the doctors telling her about the likelihood of his passing beforehand, didn’t totally prepare her for, y’know, the real thing,” she admitted. “I thought I’d be more prepared too. It’s just—a lot for me to take in, I guess,” she grumbled.

“A lot to take in, in what, three, four days?” Karkat said.

“Yeah.” She breathed out heavily. “Since the game ended—I guess I’ve become a bit out of practice, with the whole ordeal.” She laughed darkly. 

“With—watching people die, you mean?” Karkat asked. His eyebrows cinched just a little bit.

She only sighed. He could tell her eyes were heavily lidded, even though the sun cast a yellowish reflection onto her glasses, preventing him from seeing much in the way of her eyes anyway. Her bottom lip was drawn into a tight frown, and she absently looked someplace past him across the grass.

Before he could think too much about holding back, he pulled Jade into a hug. “Jade. If living on Alternia taught me anything,” he murmured firmly into her ear, “it’s that _nobody ever_ gets used to watching people die. Not even us. Not even those in the hospital.”

Her body was ridiculously tense in his arms. After a moment of consideration, her shoulders relaxed—Karkat took that as a sign of acceptance. Karkat let her sway laxly in his embrace, as he softly petted her hair and fluffy dog ears.

“Karkat?” she said suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“Why has my brother said more words to his co-worker than you in the entire time you two have been here?”

Abruptly, he pulled out of the hug. Now that she’d moved slightly out of the reflection on the sun, it was clear that her forest green eyes were dead serious. Alarmed, Karkat replied, “What do you mean…?”

Jade rolled her eyeballs—then jerked them abruptly in the direction of Karkat’s nine-o’clock. 

Karkat discreetly turned to look. Sure enough—John was a couple headstones away, deep in a conversation with Tavros from the office. 

So _Jade_ had clearly noticed their behavior, and had become suspicious. Guiltily, he turned back to her. She met him with an accusatory glare.

“What the hell is going on between you two? How come _I_ had to pick you up from your house—meanwhile John drove himself from his old apartment? What's he doing still living there?”

Karkat effectively choked on his answer. “I—we’re in the middle of a fight right now,” he said weakly.

Jade blinked. This let Karkat know that this wasn’t a good enough answer for her. Her eyebrows drew into an angry pinch. “Over _what_ could you two possibly be fighting over?”

Karkat was quick to get on the defensive. “What, did you think John would automatically be prancing in the daisies and roses at the thought of dropping everything to move into a new house?”

“What does he have against the house,” Jade growled.

“He doesn’t want to live in it,” Karkat replied simply. “No—scratch that. He doesn’t want to live with me,” he amended, deciding to come out with the whole truth of the matter.

“Oh, God, you two,” she said exasperatedly. “How long have you not been talking? _Be honest,_ ” she barked under her breath. 

“Since Wednesday, since the day he died,” Karkat said. 

“Okay—” she exhaled, relaxing a bit. “I thought it would be for longer,” she answered. She turned her full attention to him again. “He doesn’t want to live with _you_? That’s ridiculous. He talks about how much he loves you all the goddamn time,” she insisted.

Karkat wanted to believe that was true. Instead: he laughed darkly. “He does? Not now, he doesn’t,” he retorted.

“Well— _nowadays_ I wouldn’t know,” Jade replied, deadpan. “He keeps forgetting to call me.” She put air quotes around the word “forgetting.”

Before Karkat could say anything in response, Jade leaned in very close to him. He could almost feel her foggy breath on his face as she spoke to him in an intensely aggressive tone. 

“I don’t care what kind of petty argument you two are having right now,” she said to him bitingly. “You two are moirails. You’re gonna live together, so you’re going to have to just figure it out.”

“It’s not that simple,” Karkat asserted. “I already told you— _he_ doesn’t want to live with _me._ And if he doesn’t want to be my moirail, then I can’t force him.”

“It _is_ that simple. You can’t force him—but you have to talk to him,” Jade said. In an even lower voice, she said, “You have to. I’ve already tried telling him that he can’t pay rent on his apartment forever.”

Karkat processed that—the fact that Jade also, was worried for John’s finances. He looked over to the opposite side of the cemetery to find John. His heart sank—John had just finished waving goodbye to Tavros and was heading towards his car, which was parked on the street.

Jade glared at him with an even sharper intensity. His heart sank, because he knew that her mind was already made up with what she wanted him to do. “I know, I know,” he said, deferring her. “I have to return my key to him later today—I’m going to talk to him then.”

“Return your key? He asked you to return your key!?” When Karkat nodded hesitantly, she clapped her hand to her mouth and knit her brow so tightly he was surprised it didn’t curl up on itself. “Goddammit John, what the hell are you doing…”

Karkat was hit in the face by a wave of her distress. Desperate to console her— “I’ll talk to him,” he immediately pacified.

“You _have to_ talk to him,” she said. Her voice was strained. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He won’t ever talk to me. You have to figure out why he’s being so fucking distant.”

“Okay,” he answered mutely. He instantly felt the weighty responsibility crush his shoulders. He looked in the direction of John’s car—but only found an empty parking spot by the sidewalk. 

A fresh voice tore him away from his thoughts. “Hi, everyone.” Both turned around, to find PM smiling behind them. Karkat and Jade each took turns each giving her a gentle hug. 

“Are you two doing okay?” PM asked with a softer expression.

Jade and Karkat both nodded respectfully. Karkat decided to speak up. “What you managed to put together for him in just three days is amazing,” he said.

PM gave a modest smile. “Well, I can’t take all the credit for myself, now can I,” she replied, lending a look of attribution to Jade. Jade, in turn, smiled shyly. Then, PM’s voice quickly fell flat. “However, I can’t say that I had only three days to be making plans, either.”

Jade was quick to share her countenance of solemnity. She and PM shared a brief embrace. Karkat remembered how the two of them must have watched the Mayor’s health deteriorate over the course of many months. Karkat had reunited with his old friend just before the end. He had to admit that he couldn’t be totally cognizant of how Jade felt. Let alone PM—who stuck with him from the beginning till the very end. 

After peeling away from Jade, PM alternated her glance between the two of them. She said, “I hate to ask for either of you to be here longer than you must—but would you two be able to stay and help me clean up the chairs?”

Before Karkat could even open his mouth, Jade cut him off. “—I can stay,” she replied quickly. “Karkat has to get home though. He still has to help my brother move in. Isn’t that what you said?”

Jade turned to him expectantly for an answer. Her face was immobile and subtle—but when it left PM’s line of sight, her green eyes glared with a scary intensity. 

Karkat couldn’t scowl. But he hoped that his pursed lips aimed at Jade clearly spelled his discontent. “I still have some things of mine to organize,” he admitted reluctantly to PM.

“Oh, I understand. I can’t wait till you both have gotten yourselves situated,” PM chuckled warmly. “Don’t worry Karkat. I’ll find somebody else to borrow,” she said. “Good luck to you—I hope the move in isn’t _too_ stressful.” 

She and Jade headed off towards the main body of people, leaving Karkat alone on the periphery. He took one last look around the cemetery. The crowd had thinned out to about a third of its original volume, and was dispersed widely in the fresh green field. There was nothing left for Karkat to do but call a cab and head home by himself.

* * *

Six hours had passed. Karkat had left the memorial at eleven forty-five, and it was now six-thirty. Yet, he was still at his house, sitting on the sofa in the living room.

Every time he thought of hailing a taxi over to John’s—it made him jittery and dry-mouthed. Whenever he tried to rehearse the conversation they might have, it would go awry in his head. He pictured the two of them verbally pummeling each other in a screaming match that would end all worlds. 

So every time those thoughts arose—he routinely squashed the possibility against the back of his skull. 

He’d spent those six hours switching off between reading, pacing, and watching TV. As the clock ticked to six-forty five—it was roundabout time for Karkat to transition from biting his nails while pacing to biting his nails while watching TV. 

He flipped through the channels nervously—starting from the one he’d left off on—a channel showing a rerun marathon of the show _Friends_. He clicked through them one by one—slightly considering skipping to the biting-his-nails-while-reading a-book phase—

Until he stumbled upon the Game Show Network.

He’d been abruptly skipping over that dreadful channel anytime he turned the TV on. It reminded him too much of his pathetic blunder the first day he moved in. By avoiding it, he’d successfully managed to convince himself that life without John might not be so bad after all. 

He paused the television to an unbecoming capture of Steve Harvey’s face. His jaw quivered. He felt the emotional tidal wave that usually brought on dry crying—only this time, he had tears to spare. 

He shut off the TV—making sure to change the channel so he wouldn’t have to look at it when he got back. John’s key was still in the bowl, detached from his own. He brought both sets of keys with him as he grabbed his coat off the hook, and shut off all the lights. He texted John that he was coming, set the alarm and bounded out the door—all before he could convince himself otherwise.

* * *

Karkat started to feel his hands grow sweaty again on the elevator ride to Floor 4. When he reached John’s door, his hands were significantly clammy, and he had to force himself to break the habit he’d been forming over the last six hours—by _not_ standing outside John’s doorstep, pacing.

He knocked patiently on the door, only to receive no answer. He would have liked to believe John wasn’t answering because he wasn’t home—but Karkat knew all well that his light blue car was in the lot when the cab dropped him off.

Why John wasn’t answering him, he didn’t know. He checked his phone—the text message he sent telling him he was coming over didn’t even have a “read” symbol next to it. That’s when Karkat really started to worry. Sure—it was possible that when he keyed himself in, John would only be sitting on the couch, watching television while his phone was in the bedroom. There was only one way to find out for certain.

Karkat knocked one more time. Not a sound. He dug his key out of his back jeans pocket and spun it in the door lock. 

When Karkat creaked through the open door—the couch was empty, and the television was not on. However—someone was clearly sitting at a barstool at the kitchen island. With his back facing the front door, using his arms as a pillow, his rapidly shaking right leg was oscillating as fast as a fully revved boat motor. And that person was very clearly John.

“John?” Calling out his name, Karkat entered the apartment and rounded to his side. He leapt onto one of the free barstools—balancing precariously on his knees, and steadying himself with a free elbow.

John paid absolutely no attention to the invader in his house. 

The entire kitchen, although _especially_ the island countertop, was an overwhelming tornado zone. Karkat’s eyes darted from detail to detail of the scene. An array of opened and unopened envelopes that littered John’s counter like a tablecloth. Bowls left unwashed in the sink. John laying his elbows and head down on the counter, hiding his face—his now evidently unwashed hair looking like an egg sitting in a nest of white paper. His checkbook lying open on on the counter.

Once Karkat’s hearing arose over the alarm bells going off in his brain—he picked up on the most gut-wrenching, unsettling detail of all. John’s rapid, erratic breathing could be heard in distinct discord against the backdrop of the rhythmic humming of the rest of the building.

Karkat could feel the red flags, boiling his blood and racing up towards his head, inflaming it with a distinct warmth. “Oh my God,” he said, immediately tumbling off the barstool, and heading off towards the bedroom. “Oh my fucking God—”

John’s dark bedroom looked as usual, with a tad more mess than he was used to keeping it. But Karkat didn’t notice much of that, because he went straight for the drawers of John’s nightstand. He was damn near about to rip the wooden box off its hinges, had he not found John’s inhaler after a few seconds of frantic rooting.

In a heartbeat, he was back in the kitchen, seated on the countertop this time. In his haphazard climb, he’d knocked some letter or billing statement onto the floor—which quickly prompted John to raise his head, now alert and aware.

Karkat took it as his opportunity. Shaking the inhaler madly in his fist, he put a hand on John’s shoulder and tried to coax it to his mouth. “C’mon, John—I don’t know how the hell long this has been going on for, but we can still put a stop to it now, if you just take this,” he said.

John was still hyperventilating, but he would have none of it. He instantly snapped to his own defense, trying futilly to swat Karkat’s hands away. Karkat got hold of either John’s arm or his wrist. One must have lost his balance on the stool—but both ended up on the floor. 

“Karkat, get offa me!”

It was a unusually strong bellow, especially coming from someone who was supposed to be out of breath, but oddly enough—wasn’t. Either way, it made Karkat afraid. Knocked to his ass—he backed away, scuttled backwards as far away from the now snarling John as he could get.

A blunt bump assaulted the back of Karkat’s head and neck, and a loud _crash_ blared like a stereo behind each of his ears. Suddenly, pins and needles pricked the back of his head. He whirled around, and saw that John’s oven door was suddenly in need of a new window, and that the tile floor was glinting with glass shards. 

He whipped his head back to John, who was peering at him from under the counter. John’s face froze with a look of absolute horror. His hyperventilating pitched again—only this time accelerating until it peaked and descended into a series of sobs. 

It didn’t take very long for Karkat to piece together what was the matter with John. He had lost John’s inhaler in the fall—but soon realized that it didn’t matter. Right now, he needed to help John get ahold of himself. 

Karkat slowly stood up—collecting some stray shards and tossing them into the oven with the rest. He made his way carefully toward John, who was still crouched beneath the countertop, sobbing. “John, whatever it is, we can just sit on the couch and talk it out, okay?” he said loudly, trying to compete for volume with John’s wailing. “You have to calm down though, take a few deep breaths—”

John didn’t budge. It was like he didn’t even hear Karkat at all. “I’m going to die,” he gasped, his head descending to his hands. “What have I fucking done…”

“—You’re having a panic attack, you’re not going to die.” Karkat had to shout over his crying. John was inconsolable. The non-idiotic part of Karkat’s brain knew, that if he didn’t get John to stop hyperventilating, it wouldn’t be long before he passed out onto a floor full of glass. But of course, telling this to John would only hasten the process. “John,” Karkat begged, “just take a couple deep breaths for me, please.”

Maybe it was Karkat’s pleading tone, but slowly but surely, John began forcing his breaths to even out. When the entire house was quieter, Karkat knew for sure there was no wheezing or hissing coming from John’s lungs—proof that there was no asthma attack. Not that an overwhelming panic was much better—but at least it might spare them a trip to the hospital.

After John had nearly managed to get himself under control, Karkat dared to speak to him. “I really need you to tell me what’s wrong so I can help you,” he said, as calmly as he could muster. He held onto the stringlike hope that if he could keep himself calm, he’d be able to fix this. “Please. Talk to me. What’s going on here, why is your damn kitchen a mess?”

Karkat had already got ahold of one of the official-looking envelopes that had fallen to the floor. When John looked up—he saw it in Karkat’s hands, and his lips quivered. He drew in a sharp breath to speak. “I’m totally fucked,” he answered meekly.

“How are you fucked?” Karkat’s voice was softer now, as John’s sobbing had subsided and the room fell very quiet. “Whatever is going on, I can help you through it, but—”

“You can’t help me,” he said, in a voice that was heavily strained. “Those are bills, Karkat. Ones that my budget won’t let me pay. Vriska, goddamn her, was supposed to fork over some money she owes me—but she says she won’t come through,” he said. “I fucked myself over because I put myself in debt. The owner of this building is gonna be here any day now to kick me the hell out—”

An agonizing groan came from John’s curled up figure. Karkat tried to speak over it. “Look, if you need someplace to stay until you can pay off what you owe and find a cheaper place to live, I have an extra bedroom.”

Karkat knew it would set him off. “I can’t,” John said right away. “You know I can’t…”

“Oh my God. I can’t fucking believe you,” Karkat retorted. He knew he was starting to lose his cool, but he couldn’t help himself. This prodded John into looking up at Karkat with angry, tearstained eyes. “You can say I’m not your moirail anymore all you fucking want, but you can’t expect me to magically stop caring about what happens to you, okay?”

John’s eyes narrowed in grim agitation. “Well, have you ever thought that _maybe_ , I can take care of my own damn self?” John shot back. 

“I never said that you couldn’t take care of yourself,” Karkat hashed. “I’m not even asking you to be my roommate, I’m just trying to help you. And you shoot me down right away, only because you have some _problem_ with living with me,” he argued. “Pff. Unbelievable.”

“Just because I don’t think we should live together, doesn’t mean I have a problem with you,” John said. “Have you ever thought that maybe, I’m just trying not to emotionally manipulate people?”

Karkat couldn’t help but let out an audible snort, which quickly dissolved into a cackling, dark laughter.

John looked about absolutely furious. “What? What the hell? Why are you laughing?”

Karkat snickered with contempt. “Do you really wanna talk about _emotional manipulation_?” Karkat asked, deadpan. He wasn’t really waiting on an answer. It was a rhetorical question, after all. “Look at Vriska. All she ever does is trick people into giving her money, or sex,” he said. “And you really wanna equate yourself to that? And then imply, that I, your poor moirail, was dumb enough to fall for your savage tricks? Really, John,” Karkat glared at him. “I mean if that’s the way you saw us, it’s pretty fucking insulting.”

Karkat watched John’s spiteful composure crack, just a little. “I’m not equating myself to Vriska,” he replied miserably. “I just think, like—” He shook his head. He started over. “Do you ever even think that—maybe you only stayed, because you were afraid to be all by yourself?”

Karkat stared into the glimmering glass bits surrounding him. “I mean, obviously, since you brought it up, I’ve _thought_ about it,” he said, sighing exasperatedly. “But come on, John. Everybody’s afraid to be alone, at least a little bit. And anyone who says they aren’t—has to be fucking lying to themselves.” 

John’s countenance cracked a tiny bit more. “But you shouldn’t stay just because you don’t want to be alone,” he said plaintively.

“Of course—nobody should do that. It’s stupid,” Karkat said categorically. He slumped his back against the oven. “But still. If you think about it the other way, then would _anybody_ go through the trouble being with _anyone_ if their life was just as good without them? Like—” he sighed tremendously. “Like, you already know I’m happier with you than without you. And I thought that because of that, what we had was good. But clearly you didn’t see it the same way, if you fucking think I only wanted you there because because I was homeless and roommate-less,” he complained. “To be honest, it really bothers me that you think that—because I really want to believe that you actually cared about being moirails, in the time that I was here. I want to believe that it mattered enough to you that I’m not the only one that gets hurt when it’s over.”

John was biting his lip now—creating yet another series of microscopic fractures in his brave face. “I _did_ appreciate our relationship,” he said immediately. “When you lived with me, I felt like there was something more than going to work every day, having a few mundane conversations with people I barely knew, and coming home to an empty house, or a person who could barely stand me,” he snapped. “So don’t think that you’re the only one hurting right now, because you’re not. I was happy when things were like before, too.”

Karkat blinked sadly at him. He asked softly, “Then why did you kick me out if you were happy?”

It took a while, but John shook his head, staring at the underside of the counter. “It’s more complicated than that,” he said.

“It’s not that complicated,” Karkat blurted. “How is it more complicated—”

“—I loved you and I didn’t want to trap you,” he said all at once. “Okay? Is it so bad, that I thought you deserved a chance to find matespritship, and get the most out of life?”

“I was _not_ trapped, and I _was_ getting the most out of life,” Karkat said. He rested his chin on his knee. “And it’s not like I haven’t had matesprits before—do I really want to live with someone like Terezi again, where all we ever did was go in circles, tearing each other to pieces? Or God forbid—someone like Vriska or Eridan? No, of course I don’t want to live like that. Only an insane person would.” Karkat made a fake retching noise. “The very image of spending my life with either of them makes me want to vomit.”

John rolled his eyes at Karkat’s antics. John stared at him, head cocked to the side intently. “Is it so bad that I just want you to be happy. Actually happy, not living in some fantasy with me?”

Karkat threw his head back, accidentally hitting his skull against the oven yet again. It sent more sharp pains through him, and it hurt like a bitch—but he was so frustrated that he didn’t care. “I really just can’t get through to you, can I?” he said. “I _was_ happy. And so were you. I think this is less about me, and more about you,” he insisted. He knew he was letting himself get out of control—he knew arguing with John again was the last thing he wanted, but he just couldn’t help it. His voice got away from him. 

“I feel like I have to pretend around _you_ , play into _your_ fucking fantasy, make believe like everything’s fine,” Karkat spat. “One where you sit in your little pity party, and I wait to die in a house that I know I’m not supposed to own by myself. Both of us fully knowing, that we _could have been_ happy, if only you’d just decide to live in the _real_ world. If it weren’t for that, you and I wouldn’t fucking be here right now. No, we’d be home, letting ourselves be happy. I’m ready to go home,” Karkat said brashly. “But no. We can’t. Because you’re stubborn, and you’re not gonna let yourself be happy.” Karkat took a moment to catch his breath. He straightened his neck back up to look John in the eye. He demanded, “Why won’t you just let yourself be happy?”

John looked just about absolutely terrified. His mouth was hanging open, and he looked just about ready to throw up. Part of Karkat wondered if he had gone too far this time. “Karkat…” was the faint gasp that escaped his mouth. 

But—a larger part of Karkat wanted an answer out of him. “No, answer me. Why won’t you let yourself be happy?”

“Karkat, stop, your head, you’re bleeding,” John said right away. 

That sure as hell stopped Karkat in his tracks. His rueful countenance dropped, and he tentatively probed the nape of his neck. Sure enough, his fingers were rubbed slick with blood, and now that the adrenaline was starting to crash on him, he was beginning to notice the throbbing pain plaguing his skull. 

Karkat turned so John could get a clear view of the back of his head. “How bad is it?” he asked hesitantly.

“Not good,” John replied with fresh worry. “Jesus Christ, you’ve got glass shards stuck _inside your skin…_ ”

Karkat’s heart dropped. He was staring right through the oven’s empty window, his assassin. He must have driven the glass in when he first broke it and then again when slammed his head out of frustration.

“Well, let’s see if we can pick it out,” Karkat said, rising to his feet. As soon as he did, nausea hit him like a tidal wave, and he felt his knees threaten to buckle like a baby foal’s. He leaned on the countertop for support, as black dots danced upon the outskirts of his vision.

John was upright and beside him in an instant. “Are you okay? Go and sit back down if you think you’re gonna pass out,” he said.

Karkat shook his head. “I’m not going to,” he said, and the black dots were quick to escape to where they came. “I just gotta make it to the bathroom. See how bad it is myself.” He pushed himself off from the counter, toddling the couple paces it took to get to the bathroom, with John by his side to make sure he didn’t collapse. 

Looking in the mirror, Karkat could tell that second head bang must have really did a number on him. He couldn’t stop staring at himself in the mirror—the back of his head was matted with dried, red blood. Fresh blood was still oozing down his neck. He knew the glass was in there somewhere, but it must have been so deep in his skin, it was hidden in the forest of his black hair. After a couple minutes of standing, the woozy feeling unfortunately returned, and he had to lower himself back onto the toilet.

John was looking at him disconcertingly from the bathroom doorway. “I think we should take you to the ER,” he said, biting his lip again.

Blindly, Karkat probed the back of his head with his clumsy fingers. He tried to pull out the glass pieces, but they must have been lodged in there really good, because he couldn't seem to even loosen his skin’s grip on them. “Lemme just see if I can pull them out myself first.”

“I don't think that's a great idea,” he said apprehensively. “Karkat, c’mon, you can’t even see—get your stuff and I can drive you to the hospital.”

Karkat knew that realistically, he was stupid to believe he could perform first aid on his own head. So reluctantly, he nodded. He grabbed a towel for the fresh blood seeping through his hair, and followed John out of the bathroom with it wrapped around his shoulders.

* * *

Karkat huffed a sigh of exasperation as he was now confined to one of the tiny, teal-curtained cubicles of his own emergency department. The cot-like mattress was lined with a pristine white linen, to match the rest of the whiteness of the room. Karkat sat criss crossed at the head of the bed, playing with a loose string on the fringe of his hospital gown—his clothes lay in a limp pile on the chair. John sat at the foot of the bed, his long legs dangling over the side, his attention on his phone. 

After about thirty minutes of waiting, the teal curtain sprang open, revealing Rose Lalonde, who was peering curiously at the scene inside.

“Hi, Rose,” John greeted awkwardly. Karkat said nothing.

“Hi John.” Although Rose sported a peculiar smile, the first thing she did was stride over to assess the back of Karkat’s head. Poking around in his hair with gloved hands, she asked him, “I’m very eager to know how you got so much glass stuck in your scalp, Mr. Vantas.”

“My head had an unfortunate collision with John’s—oven window,” Karkat admitted gruffly. 

“Unfortunate collision indeed—you’ve got yourself some pretty nasty puncture wounds.” Karkat watched out of the corner of his eye as Rose picked up a tweezer-like utensil off of the metal surgical tray set up beside her. “A head in the oven, if I understand correctly?” She chuckled and asked with a smirk, “Trying to imitate Ms. Sylvia Plath, are we?” 

John and Karkat each exchanged blank looks. Karkat couldn’t see her face since she was standing directly behind him, but he could only imagine the annoyance written on it when nobody understood her joke. 

John cleared his throat, which broke the cricket-noise silence. “You can get the shards out though, right? Is he gonna need stitches?”

Rose cocked her head as she further examined Karkat’s scalp. “I should be able to get all the glass out. Stitches will be necessary, but probably only a few,” she answered him. She directed her next question at Karkat. “Are you still feeling dizzy, or nauseous?”

Karkat was about to shake his head no—but thought better of it. “Not really much anymore,” he answered.

“I’ll have someone start you on some IV fluids, just to be safe,” she said. She quickly murmured the order into her pager. 

“Alright,” Karkat muttered. He wasn’t too fond of the idea of the IV—not because it was painful, but because he knew it meant he’d have to stay in the ER longer. Which meant that he’d have to sit in a tiny cubicle with John close in tow, in awkward silence, for longer than he wanted to. 

Rose was quick to begin work on his scalp. Swiftly, she went from nape to widow’s peak with her tweezer-like metal tool. One by one, blood-tinted glass chunks dropped into a metal bowl on her tray like raw rubies. Every once in a while she’d get out the needle and thread and tie a couple knots into the especially sensitive spots on his skull. 

Karkat was sitting horizontal on the bed, with Rose hovering above him. John sat on the foot end of the bed, facing the two of them. He didn't speak a word, and neither did Karkat or Rose throughout the entire process. They sat there, in the cricket-sound silence, until Karkat’s scalp was glass free. 

Karkat heard the clink of the last raw ruby chip in the bowl. “Well, it looks like you’re all done,” Rose said, giving his black hair a final once over. Karkat and John shortly awoke from their silent stupor. Rose said to them, “A nurse should be in to sign your discharge papers after your IV drip is finished, Karkat.”

“Thank you so much, Rose,” John spoke up.

Rose smiled modestly. “Don’t mention it. Thank _you_ for bringing him in,” Rose said to him. “God knows if you hadn’t, Karkat would still be trying to pick them out himself, right?”

The quiet murmur of collective laughter filled the room at that last. “I strongly advise that you call someone to cover your shift tomorrow, Karkat. Stay home, and rest well. I hope to see you both soon—hopefully next time, in more casual circumstances,” she said. 

They bade her goodnight, and she left the room, pulling the teal curtains closed behind her. The silence after her heeled footsteps faded away quickly ate up all the oxygen in the little cubicle. It was so suffocating, that Karkat felt in his throat the need to say something, but somehow couldn’t find the breath to do so. So for a good while, he just sat on one end of the bed, scratching the skin around his IV. Watching out of the corner of his eye as John sat on the other end of the bed—routinely clasping and unclasping his fingers. 

With the silence so thick and the air so thin, it took a meager cough to make a dent in the awkwardness. The first one came from John. 

He cleared his throat tentatively. “If the only thing left to do is get your needle taken out, you might as well change back into your regular clothes, right?”

Karkat nodded in assent. John got up off the cot to fetch the pile of sweater and jeans from the chair and gently toss it to him. John left the room to give him his privacy. When Karkat was decent again, he called him back—John resumed his spot on the edge of the cot, and the silence returned for a bit, although much thinner than it was before. 

Karkat spoke up again. “I don't know about you, but I'm just about ready to bust a nut if I'm not back in my own bed within the hour," he said grumpily. 

This elicited a small snort from John, which helped to loosen the tension seemingly wrapped around Karkat’s neck. John replied, “Me too. And you can bet I'll be enjoying sleeping in my own bed while it lasts.”

As soon as it had begun to fade, the awkwardness got about a thousand times thicker again in just one second—as if someone blasted a high power fog machine to the cubicle with the curtains closed. The situation before the whole bleeding fiasco happened trickled back to Karkat's mind. By the look on John’s face, Karkat could tell it was coming back to him too. 

Karkat asked hesitantly, "Do you know how long it takes for them to figure out you haven't paid?"

John shrugged with indifference. “Not long,” he answered. Karkat looked over at him from the very corner of his eye, and he was twiddling his thumbs uneasily. 

Before the oxygen was sucked out of the room again, leaving him speechless—he said hesitantly, “I know you think I’m gonna judge you if you come and stay at my place. But I’m not.”

John snapped his head towards where Karkat was sitting. He then eased his countenance back into his lap. “That’s not—I wasn’t thinking that.”

Karkat waited for him to say something else, but John’s attention was back at his thumbs. Karkat’s armpits began to tingle, and he almost knew that John could feel him staring. He turned his face away. “Alright,” he said, his fists holding onto the edge of his gown again. “I just don’t want you to think that, when we were together, that I didn’t already have everything that I could’ve wanted.”

John slowly turned his head towards him. His eyes held more fatigue than Karkat was comfortable with. “Karkat. I already know you were happy. You already told me that,” he said tiredly.

“Well, I mean—I was happy, yeah. But I was satisfied too, and that was what I meant to say.” 

Karkat held his breath as he waited for John to answer. John didn’t even look up from his lap this time. “Is there a difference,” he asked numbly.

“Well yeah, there is, actually,” Karkat babbled. His words were getting away from him, and he could feel it. But as long as the air in the room was somewhat clear—God knows he’d continue talking. “Being happy is just feeling good, but being satisfied is when you’re finally ready to say enough’s enough, y’know,” he said. “Like, I’m almost twenty-two, and the game has already worn me the hell out—”

The mention of the game was what seemed to get John’s attention. When Karkat said that, John seemed to squirm in his seat. 

Karkat was startled by his attention. Before that, it almost seemed like he’d been talking to a brick wall. It tripped him up mid sentence, but he quickly picked back up and kept going. “—I’m worn out, and all I really want to do at this point is just live in the world that we worked so hard to win over. And be able to let my guard down for once,” he said. He felt like he was surely rambling. 

Nervously, Karkat let his eyeballs drift towards the corners, until John came into view. It could have just been the unreliability of his peripheral vision, but he was almost sure he saw John open his mouth, and take a breath in preparation to speak. There was no way for him to actually know for sure, though—because at the exact same time, their privacy was torn away from them with the sound of someone ripping open their teal curtains.

Karkat’s neck snapped up and his eyes fixed upon a carapacian nurse standing in the doorway. She quickly hustled over to his bedside, carefully tugging the IV out of his arm. She briskly handed him a packet of bright green discharge papers, signed and stamped into officiality by the hospital. 

“ _Thank you,_ ” Karkat said to her in carapacian. She gave him that classic, slightly-startled, _how-come-you-can-speak-my-language_ look, before turning it into a smile, and exiting the room. Karkat and John slowly set into motion—gathering car keys and house keys off of tables until they were ready to ditch the hospital for the night.

* * *

Neither John nor Karkat spoke at all in the car.

Karkat began to feel the familiar heat of worry as he replayed the things he said to John in the hospital on repeat in his head. He hoped that John’s lack of response could be chalked up to him concentrating on the road—John’s vision was pretty bad at night anyways, maybe he was just keeping his lips tightly zipped because he was trying to get them both home safe. 

Maybe. 

Karkat was so lost in a swarm of his own thoughts and anxieties, that he barely heard it when John did finally say two words to him.

Five words, actually. The car was in park on a dark sidestreet when John asked lowly, “This is your house, right?”

The outline of John’s face was faintly illuminated by the lamps on the streetside. Karkat looked out the window past him, and he was indeed back in the driveway of the new house. 

He had to wait for the fog in his brain to clear before properly answering. “Uh—yeah,” he replied. This was it. He wanted to say something more, but then John was going to ask why he wasn’t unbuckling his seatbelt. He fished around in his pocket and took out his house key. However, looking down at it, even in the darkness of the car, he knew it wasn’t his.

He held it out to John. “This, I—came over to bring it back to you,” he said, giving John back his apartment key. “But then I guess we got derailed.” When John didn’t laugh, he added, “Thanks for taking me to the hospital, by the way.”

John stared down at the key, but made no comment on it. “It was problem,” he answered. “Make sure you call someone to take care of your shift tomorrow, like Rose said,” he added. “Get some rest, Karkat.”

Karkat nodded at his concern. “I will—don't worry,” he replied. “Have a good night.”

Karkat finally decided it was time to get out of John’s car. The way up the long driveway to the fluorescent-lit porch was a long one. It was a loser’s walk. The spring cicadas that were just beginning to come out of hibernation seemed to be jeering in his ears, and Karkat quickly hated them. He wondered what Jade would say to him next time they saw each other. He’d failed to get through to John. 

Suddenly, an abrupt noise interrupted the rhythmic humming of the cicadas. It was unmistakably, the slamming of a car door. 

Karkat slowly turned around. John stood awkwardly beside his idling car, its headlights illuminating the swirls of air dust around his figure. 

John took a couple hesitant steps forward. “Thank you,” he said, just loud enough to be audible above the insects. He said with an almost-chuckle, “Not everyone is good enough to me to help me through a nervous breakdown.” 

Karkat blinked. He didn’t know if John had gotten out of the car to only say that. “It was no problem,” he replied flatly. John was putting him in a bit of an awkward position there. Was he supposed to go back inside now? Stay out here talking to him?

John answered Karkat’s question in the moment after. Even in the low lamp light, Karkat could clearly see that John’s brow was cinched. He spoke out in a tone that could even be considered accusatory. “I just, I actually can’t believe you talk about how happy and satisfied you were when we were together, as if I wasn’t,” he said. “Because I was, alright? I was only stubborn because I had to be. Because I just I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I wasn’t and it meant that someone else got hurt.”

Karkat held his breath. It was such an outpour of words all at once, that Karkat, once again, wasn’t quite sure if John was done or not. John sighed, and put his head in his hands. Karkat watched mournfully. “Your happiness isn’t worth any less than anybody else’s,” he responded lowly.

“Yeah. I know that _now_ ,” John said, almost rolling his eyes at himself. “I sure wish I knew that before I went and put you through a whole load of bullshit.”

Karkat could now fully believe Terezi when she said that seeing John get angry for the first time had surprised her. Even though this wasn’t Karkat’s first exposure, he’d never realized the extent of that anger before now. He could now truly believe that John’s worst punching bag was himself. 

“We’ve both put each other through a lot of shit,” Karkat responded plaintively. 

“Yeah,” he said. Maybe that was the one thing the two of them could safely agree on. “Even still, I know I didn’t have to tear down everything we’d built together in my apartment. And _don’t_ try to counter me and say that I didn’t try to tear us down, because we both know that I did,” he said firmly, before Karkat could even open his mouth.

Karkat had indeed drawn in a breath, ready to tell John that he wasn’t in the wrong. He let it go. John seemed happier, or at least a little less agitated—that Karkat was letting him talk. 

“For Christ’s sake, you lost the Mayor this week. One of your closest friends from the _meteor_ ,” John asserted. “And was I there for you? No, I wasn’t. I was too wrapped up in my own shit that I stopped being a decent moirail to you.” He sighed. “I know I made mistakes. You know I made mistakes,” he said. “I just want the chance to, y’know, do things differently this time. Maybe actually be a moirail to you, instead of running away.”

Karkat couldn’t help but stare at John for a moment. He _had_ wished that John would’ve been there to mourn the Mayor with him. He then sighed, knowing also that John had spent the last month refusing any help from anyone, let alone his own moirail. He couldn't deny that it hurt. “There are a lot of us who are willing to help you, if you decide not to run away,” Karkat said, getting rather quiet.

“You’ve talked to Jade already, I guess,” John supposed flatly. 

Karkat nodded. “She just wants to be a good ecto-sister to you, y’know,” he admitted. “And I can’t say I don’t feel her—she wants to help you through whatever crap you have. Cares about you a damn lot,” he said.

“I know she does,” John said, lowering his eyes. He mumbled, “I know I hurt her. By not returning her calls, and shit.”

“Go call her,” Karkat said to him. 

John looked a little astonished for a moment, as if he assumed Karkat meant for him to do it right here, in his driveway. He then sighed greatly. Karkat could tell it wasn’t something that would be easy for him, but was something that he knew had to be done. He started nodding, first slightly, and then more definitely. “Okay,” he said finally. “I can do that.”

Karkat couldn’t help but give him a welcoming smile. “Take this week to pack up your stuff, and next weekend, when we’re both off, we can—”

With a couple brisk steps in Karkat’s direction, John managed to cut him off by pulling him into a bold, wordless hug. 

“—we can move you in,” Karkat finished, his breath diminished by the gangly arms squeezing his lungs. Startled a bit, Karkat hesitated a moment before relaxing and resigning himself to wrapping his arms around John’s torso too. 

“Thank you,” John murmured into his shoulder. Then he chuckled mildly, saying, “This is our goddamn universe—we deserve our chance to live in it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter of John's apartment will be posted later today. Thanks for stickin with me, everyone :D


	12. The Cardboard Mansion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the final installment of John's Apartment, John finally moves in with Karkat in the Mayor's old house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter :)

“Hey, I’m gonna need someone to lend me a hand pretty soon...”

“—I don’t even know if you guys have enough space to keep all these.”

“Karkat—is it okay that I put this over here?”

Karkat’s front door was propped open, and the bright light of a four o’clock Sunday was peeking in. The driveway was packed with cars, and Jade, Terezi, Feferi, Rose, PM, and PM’s son were bustled throughout the rooms of the house as they helped to finally move John in. 

Karkat turned to Jade, who had asked him the question—almost knocking her over in the process. Things were just so tight in the kitchen, as each person hustled past one another to get their job done. It was quite a crowd, in such a small space.

Jade stood before him, a barstool that once belonged at the old kitchen island straddled before her. “Do you want this in the kitchen, or no?” she asked dutifully.

“If it’s furniture, and it came from John’s, then put it in the basement,” he told her. Jade nodded, and waddled off with the stool. John and Karkat had both agreed that they didn’t need two sets of furniture, and any duplicate items John could sell for money to pay off his debt. 

Most of the afternoon was spent exactly like this—Karkat and John standing on opposite sides of the kitchen, directing the flow of traffic throughout their house, and using the family-size table as a holding space for basically every item that was brought in. 

It was exhausting work, but the amount of hands they had let them finish just before six o’clock. John and Karkat thanked Feferi, Rose and Terezi as they waved goodbye and finally left the house. It wasn’t long before PM and her son followed them out.

“Let me know if either of you need anything else,” she said as she approached the living room foyer.

John answered her with a laugh, “You’ve already given us so much already, PM, and done more than anyone could have ever asked you to.”

PM stood in the doorway, her arm linked with her son’s. “Yes. But if either of you need me to bring anything else over, you know all you need to do is ask.” The two exited the house. 

After John and Karkat had waved goodbye to them too, they both simultaneously eyed the bright green Volkswagen that was still parked in their driveway.

Karkat’s eyes narrowed at it. “Did you see Jade leave?” he asked John.

John shook his head. “She’s still in the basement I think. Last time I saw her, she was carrying a bunch of our barstools down there.”

The two of them reentered the house, and made their way downstairs to the chilly basement, where sure enough, Jade was still struggling to arrange and make room for the array of furniture that had accumulated down there. Karkat looked over at John, who seemed astonished at the amount of items he actually had to sell. 

“Oh! Hey guys,” Jade said with surprise. She was trying to upturn the stools so that they would fit on a wooden dresser, but there didn’t seem to be enough room. “Did...everybody else leave?” she asked bashfully.

Karkat and John nodded at the same time. “We can keep a few of these in the kitchen for now, since it doesn’t look like they’ll fit down here,” John suggested.

Jade handed off a barstool to John, who handed it off the Karkat, assembly line style. They each took one and carried it back up to the main floor. 

They lined them up in a corner of the kitchen, where they also invited Jade to sit for a while. She and John each took a seat at the kitchen table, while Karkat stayed on his feet, attempting to clear off all the bowls, cups, spatulas, pots, pans, and silverware from the table, and fit them into the kitchen cupboards. 

“Karkat, you really don’t have to do that right now,” John said, watching as Karkat’s swift feet quickly alternated from kitchen table to cupboards, kitchen table to drawers—and then back again. 

“Might as well,” Karkat grumbled, bustling back to the counter, about to sort through a taped-up bundle of forks, spoons and knives. “I mean, where do _you_ expect to eat dinner tonight? Over the _sink_?”

“To be honest, I thought we’d get takeout,” John said plainly. Karkat stopped in his tracks. John looked at him sympathetically. “Be honest. Are either of us actually up for cooking tonight?”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “Fair point,” he said. But unpacking for eight hours had put him into a cleaning mood, so he felt compelled to keep going with it. This inevitably, elicited a sensitive sigh from John, and a giggle from Jade. 

“I have really great news, you guys,” she said, catching the attention of even Karkat, who was deep in his organizing spree. Jade continued, “I’ve been talking to the people in the research area of the hospital. Nothing’s for sure yet—but the scientists down there are ninety-percent sure that they’ve made a breakthrough with the carapacian virus.”

Karkat almost dropped the knife he was holding. John was staring at Jade from across the kitchen table, eyes widened like saucers. “You aren’t serious,” John said, mouth agape. 

She was smiling too broadly to be kidding. “I didn’t believe them either. It’s only a treatment, not a cure—but it’s something,” she said. John was nodding vigorously. 

“If only it’d been around just a few weeks ago,” Karkat couldn’t help but say. He didn’t mean to be such a pessimist. But he couldn’t help but think of the Mayor. Seeing PM or her son would always remind Karkat of him. 

Jade must have sensed this, and she turned to him with empathetic eyes. “Yeah. I thought about that too. It’s bittersweet, in that way,” she admitted. “But if the research keeps going, they could have something to vaccinate his great-grandkids with, y’know?”

Karkat thought about that. He decided Jade was right. “Hopefully so,” he said finally. He kept with sorting John’s bowls. He was now stacking them by shape and size. “I gotta be home Monday night after work. Maybe Wednesday, when our shifts are up, we can take a trip down to the lab to see if their claims are still legit.”

“Oh—” Jade’s face fell, which led Karkat to look over at her again. She looked at him rather guiltily. “I told Rose, but I didn’t tell you. Monday is my last day,” she said. 

Karkat quit his stacking altogether. John was looking over as well. “In—the emergency department?” John asked incredulously. 

Jade nodded. “Yeah. They’re moving me to the hospice center, and I’ll be nursing there from now on.”

Karkat almost slammed the bowls he was still holding into each other. He put them on the kitchen counter before he could get them stuck together. “They can’t just move you on a whim! You’ve been working in the ED for practically as long as there’s _been_ an ED,” he growled. 

Jade’s mouth shifted to the side. “Maybe I should have said that differently,” she responded slowly. “ _I_ put in the request to transfer, and it only just came through. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

Karkat only then realized his mouth was open, so he closed it. “Since when?” he asked.

“Starting from when I first began going up to the floors to visit the Mayor after work,” she admitted. “It’s not that I don’t love the ER. I do. But when someone comes to the end of their life—y’know, the families go through a hell of a lot. And the hospice place is ridiculously understaffed, even more than we are.”

Karkat’s lips tightened, and he nodded. “We’re gonna miss you,” he said tritely, although he really meant it. “They’re gonna have to find someone else who’s willing to teach people how to use pee bottles. It won’t be easy,” he said with a hint of sarcasm.

Jade let out a big laugh. “I’ll be right down the street, though. We’ll have to grab lunch sometime when we’re all off, now that I won’t be seeing you every day.”

Karkat snorted. Jade glanced at her watch, and her eyes widened. “Oh God. I gotta feed my dogs,” she said, getting up from the table with a grunt of the chair. Karkat and John also stood to show her out. 

“Remember—lunch sometime,” she said, waggling a finger at both men as she stood on their porch. 

She turned to John, who automatically bent down to hug her goodbye. “Thank you for calling me,” she said, to which John mumbled what was probably, “no problem.” She then asked him, “You’re still free to come over Friday afternoon, right?”

“Yes,” he answered. “My buddy Tavros is covering for me the second half of the day. He owes me a favor.”

“And you’re sure my puppies won’t kill you?”

John rolled his eyes. “They won’t. But I’ll carry my inhaler, if it makes you feel better.”

“Good,” she said, giving him three final pats on the back and breaking from the hug. She exhaled, and smiled at the pair of them. “I’ll see you both sometime soon. Good luck with the rest of your unpacking,” she said, making her way down their porch steps finally. John and Karkat waved her off as she keyed herself into her buggie. 

“Call me if you need anything!” Jade called out before sliding into the driver’s seat. They laughed and watched her drive away. 

Karkat shuffled over to a cushion bench that was situated on the porch, and collapsed into it. “I don’t know about you, but my legs are about to scream bloody murder if I have to stand for much longer,” he said.

John smiled modestly, and squeezed into the seat next to him. “Might as well give them a break before your six o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Ugh…” Karkat threw his head back in a rather dramatic gesture. “Would Rose and Jade be mad at me if I just stopped going to work altogether?”

This stole a soft chuckle from John. “After you worked so hard to get your job? They’d send you to a mental institution,” he said. 

Karkat nodded in overwhelming agreement. His attention had turned to the distance—across the street, more specifically. About diagonal to Karkat and John’s front lawn was a large soccer field, with crowds of children running around on its grass—mostly carapacian children.

John must have caught him staring at it. “That field probably belongs to the high school in the district,” he said. “But it looks like the elementary school uses it for their aftercare program as well.” 

Karkat nodded absently. One group of carapacian children had caught his eye—a horde of about ten kids were playing on the edge of the curb with a beat-up kick ball. The older ones seemed to be playing an innocuous game of keep-away from the littler ones. Karkat watched as one of the smaller kids—a five year old by the looks of it—finally got possession of the ball, only to kick it across the street. It wasn’t long before the kid ran through the road to chase the ball.

John said thoughtfully, “Looks like the kids are mostly carapacian. I think they make up most of the population in these parts. It’s possible that we’re the only troll or human on our whole block...”

The ball hurtled right onto Karkat and John’s lawn. “Hold that thought,” Karkat said, getting up from his chair to stand on his sore, stiff legs, making his way down the porch steps.

As if on cue, the ball rolled right towards his feet. As Karkat picked up the kick ball, The kid who was running fastest stopped short in front of him, and it wasn’t long before the rest of them slowed up as well. 

"Hey! Give us the ball back," one of the feistier human children near the front demanded.

He hugged the ball against his chest. Karkat was of “average” troll height—it was only because the tiny children were so midgety, that he was able to keep the ball from them successfully. "Not until you promise me that you'll _look_ next time before crossing the street," Karkat asserted. 

A couple more kids streamed into his yard—this time toddling carapacians and even a couple tiny trolls. They all smiled upon arrival, and Karkat didn’t quite know why. 

Suddenly, Karkat felt a blunt force tumble into his lower leg—buckling it, although he remained on his feet. A pair of small arms quickly snaked around his legs, not quite able to reach his torso. 

Karkat spun around as much as he could. He craned his neck down at the tiny carapacian child that was clinging to his jeans. 

"Mr. Karkat, Mr. Karkat!!" she chimed in a sing-songy voice. She spoke in English, surprisingly well for a child in this neighborhood. He’d noticed that most people living around this area of Can Town didn’t speak much English at all. 

Karkat did a double take. He tucked the kickball into his armpit, and gently pulled the child off of him to get a closer look. 

He couldn’t remember her name—but her little face told him exactly where she was from. A dingy old classroom underground—hidden in a now-forgotten chamber of the brooding caverns, where she as a precocious young child sat in the front row of desks. 

Karkat looked around at the growing crowd of tiny tots streaming into his yard from across the street. His eyes grew wide as he began to recognize many of their little faces—his memories flooding back from his teaching days with Kanaya. A couple of those faces were stowed in his more recent memory, however—the Mayor's grandchildren, who he used to watch running around the tile hospital floors.

_Those_ kids recognized him and waved at him, copying the little girl from the front row—exclaiming, "Mr. Karkat! Hi-hi!!"

The one human child was still bouncing on his tippy-toes, reaching for the ball. "Give it, give it!!" he demanded now more forcibly. 

"I _will_ give you back your ball—" he announced—his voice catching the attention of the crowd of little ones— "but you all have to promise me not to run into the street again."

There was a universal chime of “we will” from the group. Karkat smiled slightly, and lowered the ball into the human child's grabby pink hands. 

He stood and watched as the crowd abruptly turned around—then ran across his yard towards the street—looking both ways before crossing, and dispersing across the soccer field once again. He stood there, watching them all trip over themselves in their fight for the kick ball, which had become nothing more than a pinprick from Karkat’s spot on the porch. 

John shuffled up behind him, and Karkat turned around. John’s eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open dramatically. “Oh my God. I couldn’t believe that was you,” he said, aghast. “You’re so good with them.”

Karkat shrugged modestly. “Kanaya taught me a couple of things, back in the brooding caverns,” he told him. 

John blinked, and his open mouth formed a smile. “I didn’t know if you heard me talking to PM’s son, or Rose. They _both_ asked us to babysit their kids sometime, y’know,” he said. Karkat’s eyes widened. John gave an overwhelming nod. “I know. I should’ve given them a yes, now that I know that kids love you.”

Karkat snorted. “We haven’t even got all of your stuff packed away yet. Maybe we should do that, before we start trying to childproof the house?” he suggested sarcastically. 

John just shrugged his shoulders. “Fair enough,” he agreed.

* * *

“You said you wanted to do takeout for dinner, right?” Karkat asked.

“I think we deserved it.” John picked up the phone, ready to dial the number. “Is Chinese alright for you?”

Karkat shrugged emphatically. “You do realize it’s all considered human food to me. Calling it by different names isn’t gonna change that.”

John rolled his eyes, and took it as a green light to make the call. “You want your usual, right?” he asked as he listened to the dial tone. Karkat nodded, and John excused himself to make their order. 

When he came back, he was smiling rather uncomfortably, as if he was about to break bad news. 

“What is it,” Karkat asked, deadpan.

“They said they deliver, but it could take up to an hour to get here,” he answered.

Karkat snorted. “And I suppose you're still gonna wanna give this guy a tip, regardless of when he gets here?”

“Of course I will, I’m not a dick,” he replied. When Karkat rolled his eyes, he said, “You don't get it, you have to tip them, or else they look at you funny.”

Karkat snickered. 

“I have all the spare change I found while moving stored in a shoebox on my dresser, on the left hand side,” he said. “We can put on a movie while we wait for the food to come. Is Con Air okay?”

“It absolutely is not,” Karkat answered right away. 

John’s shoulders sagged poutingly. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The fact that the last time I watched it with you was not even a month ago, is what’s wrong with it,” Karkat answered, hands on his hips. “Why can’t you watch Netflix like a normal human being?”

John shrugged playfully. “Bedroom dresser, left hand side,” he reminded him. 

Karkat stomped off towards the bedroom to look for John’s tip. John’s stuff lay unpacked in a separate bedroom down the hall. He’d expressed that he wanted to eventually sleep in the same room as Karkat, once they managed to get smaller beds to fit the room. That way they could have a guest bedroom—so that in case John decided to pick up any other homeless potential moirails off the street, that they wouldn’t have to sleep on the living room couch. When Karkat brought this to John’s attention, he’d punched him on the arm and told him that wasn’t at all the reason he wanted a guest bedroom.

John’s room was pretty sparse, considering most of his personal stuff still lay in boxes that he hadn’t put away yet. Karkat eyed his dressers, which were clear of any shoeboxes—or anything at all. They were bare. Karkat wondered if John had pulled a prank on him, if this was an elaborate scheme to get him out of the room so John could cue up Con Air.

“John!” he called out.

It wasn’t long before John stumbled into the room. Seeming serious enough, he quickly deduced that there was no shoebox in sight—he ventured into Karkat’s room to look for it instead. Eventually he found it, on _Karkat’s_ dresser, left hand side.

“Whoops,” he laughed. “All these rooms looked the same to me eight hours ago.”

Karkat grunted, and went to find his own wallet to split the check that was to come. He’d offered to pay for John’s dinner entirely, but John had abruptly refused. Said that he was being careful with his finances, and that he’d budgeted in one last hurrah before sticking to a strict saving schedule. Karkat had wanted proof of this, and John proudly showed him a calendar with June 12th marked off in red—the day in which he’d finally save enough to pay off the entirety of his debt. Which also happened to be Karkat’s human-years birthday.

“Alright, I got my wallet—” Karkat said, and stood back up to leave the room. However, John didn’t seem ready to go. He was staring at the floor, and as Karkat came closer, he realized that his closet door was wide open, leaving the Mayor’s shoe rack memorial fully exposed. 

John turned to him, his open mouth overbite clearly indicative of his surprise. He looked back at the closet floor. “You did all this?” he asked softly. 

Karkat nodded slightly. He was slightly embarrassed for John to see it, somehow. “I kept finding his stuff around, when I first moved in,” he explained. “I just—I don’t even know. I thought I might as well put it all in one place.”

John gently crouched down to the level of the shoe rack, his knobbly limbs popping as he sat. His myopic eyes pored over every detail Karkat had carefully set in place. It was then that Karkat decided to join him on the floor.

“It’s like you took a little piece of Friday’s memorial, and kept it here.”

Karkat smiled modestly. “I showed it to PM today—she cried,” he said, chuckling a bit. “I asked her if she wanted any of it back—she told me to keep it as it is.”

John’s lips pursed into a forlorn frown. John felt guilty about a lot of things concerning the Mayor—Karkat could read it on his face. John’s brow furrowed shamefully as he turned to Karkat. “It shouldn’t stay hidden in your closet, though.”

Karkat looked at it with disconcertion. “I mean—to be honest I put this together on a whim,” he said, remembering his first night in the house by himself. “I’m not even sure where else in the house we could put it.”

John’s eyes narrowed in deep concentration for a moment or two. He then said, “You don’t have anything on the top level of the bookshelf, back in the living room, do you?”

Karkat’s lips twitched into a smile. He shook his head no—and the two of them carefully pulled the shoe rack out of the closet. As they carried it out, Karkat noticed that Terezi’s cross stitch was left behind, leaning up against the wall, untouched since two Thursdays ago and unnoticed by John. He couldn’t decide as to if that ought to be a good thing or a bad thing. 

They cautiously set the intact memorial onto the glass coffee table, and began unloading it, inch by inch, exactly as Karkat had originally placed it. Well—John was doing all that, actually. He was the only one tall enough to reach the top shelf. Karkat stood by and handed him the Mayor’s momentos. He was happy to let John do the hard work. It seemed like John needed some kind of closure, or self redemption at least—Karkat thought that letting him arrange the momentos seemed to help with that. 

After handing John the last couple of items, he left the room to put the now empty shoe rack back in its proper place in the bedroom closet. 

He eyed the cross stitch on the floor as he did so. He decided to grab it and tentatively return with it to the living room. 

When he arrived there, John was now fully finished setting up the Mayor’s mini memorial, and had taken a step back from his work with his neck craned to admire it. With the cross-stitch tucked under one arm, Karkat joined him. 

John turned to face him. “You ready for some well deserved seven o’clock television?” he asked cheerfully.

Karkat glanced toward the TV—and suppressed a massive eye roll. Karkat recognized the opening credits of the first Ghostbusters movie when he saw it. He watched as John cracked an unsuppressable smile out of the corner of his eye, as if he had planned the whole thing and had just been _waiting_ for the punchline of his joke to kick in.

“ _John_. You are not serious, This is just as bad as Con Air,” Karkat said in a gruff voice with no actual vitriol. 

“Wait, hold up for a second. Is that yours?” John asked, pointing to the cross-stitch, which Karkat had momentarily forgotten he was holding, due to the inherent insanity of John’s semi-ironic prank. 

He looked down at it. “Oh—yeah,” he said, handing it off to John to examine.

John’s eyes glinted behind his glasses as they studied every inch of the cross stitch frame. “Where’d you _get_ this?” he asked inquisitively. 

“Terezi gave it to me. As a ‘housewarming gift’, she called it, for the both of us,” he answered. “It was actually, after I’d moved in, but before you did.” 

This caused John to frown. Karkat added bashfully— “I remembered I had it in the closet, and thought we could put it somewhere out here too.”

John’s eyes were still probing the sewn-in flowers, the blue box-lettering. He smiled down at them now, nodding slightly. “I think we can arrange that.”

And so Terezi’s cross stitch gift was the first thing to make it onto the Vantas-Egbert mantle. Karkat wanted to have it filled with picture frames, momentos and shit, just like PM and the Mayor’s did just a few weeks ago. He really wanted it to be the first of many things to go up there. 

Upon starting the movie, John sat rather close to Karkat, and Karkat more than didn’t mind. He grabbed a large blanket hanging off the side of the couch, and spread it over the both of them.

“You comfortable, with your stitches and all?” John asked from the crook of Karkat’s neck. 

“Yup,” he answered softly. “I’m good.” Rose had taken a casual peek at his stitches when she was over earlier that day, and told him that they were healing just fine. 

There was no way in hell movies like Ghostbusters were not burned into the back of John’s eyelids by now. So he wouldn’t be the type of asshole to get annoyed if Karkat talked during the movie. In the way of casual conversation, he asked John, “Hey—didn’t you used to have a Ghostbusters T-shirt?”

Karkat could tell John was already making himself comfortable, and his eyes were blinking blearily. “Yeah. The one with the slimer on the front,” he said tiredly. “I remember packing it—forget which box I put it in. It’s too small for me now. Maybe it’ll fit one of Rose’s daughters, or PM’s grandkids,” he mumbled into the blankets.

Karkat nodded. Somehow, he found John’s suggestion comforting. “I can give it to her next time I run things over to her place,” he said. 

His words earned a sleepy smile from John. 

It wasn’t long before John’s nose began to give way to soft snoring. Karkat still didn’t quite understand how someone could possibly fall asleep to a movie that was so heavy on the action. But then again, he wasn’t surprised—he’d witnessed him put on The Wicker Man and doze off within minutes.

Karkat already knew the drill. He gently slid John’s glasses off and lay them upside-down on the side table. He wrapped an arm around him and pulled the blanket a little farther over them both.

His head rested upon John’s. His ear was trained for the doorbell, which ought to go off sometime soon, harking the arrival of their Chinese food. His eyes lay fixed on the television screen, watching the men in tan uniforms bumble around the old firehouse, as he waited for John to wake up any minute now, knowing for certain that things didn’t get much better than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started this, I had no idea I would ever be in this far. Now that I've come to the end, I can't help but thank everyone who've stuck with me and John and KK until the very end.   
> *sniffles* I'm not crying you're crying.
> 
> The afterward will be posted sometime soon, so if the people who get notifications for this see a chapter 13 going up, that's what it is. I just have a lot to say about the process of writing this and stuff and how it's affected me and blah blah blah and it would be a lot to put down in this box so that's why I'm doing an afterward. As always, I'm open to comments and questions down below or submitted to my tumblr @emptybattlefield.  
> <3 love you all


	13. ~~Afterward~~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ebby talks unnecessarily in a disorganized fashion for an additional 640 words.

I wrote the first chapter of John’s Apartment about a year and a half ago. When I say that I “never thought I’d be in this far”, I really mean it...This was supposed to be a short, one chapter Johnkat story that was left open ended. Seriously.

A couple people in the comments section suggested I write more of it. So I extended things a bit. At Chapter 4, I wrote:

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153224031@N02/40948635060/in/dateposted-public/)

“Seven or so chapters.” HAHA. Very funny, Ebby. 

When I first came to AO3, I never thought I’d write a fanfiction novel. (Because isn’t that kind of what they are? These 40K+ long things??) Every fic I’d written before then was a short story. I never pictured myself writing one as long as this.

Even still at Chapter 4, when I said that I’d go up to 7 chapters, I didn’t think I’d fulfill that promise. For a while I thought JA would end up as just another unfinished fic on AO3. I like to finish what I start though. So I kept going with it. Needless to say, I’m glad I did.

The more I wrote, the more I immersed myself in what I was doing. The more of myself I found inside the story. If you relate to John and Karkat each wanting to be independent, well here’s news, so do I. Karkat’s concept of debt? John’s asexuality? Jade reaching out to someone who’s shutting down? Feferi trying to keep her emotions out of her work? Terezi holding onto someone who’s not right for her?

Yeah. You can bet I relate. 

Maybe none of you reading this relate to any of those things. But hey, at least you listened to me babble on about them for 50,000 words, and to be honest, I’m happy you did and I can’t ask much more of you.

I never would have written this if it weren’t for the support I received from readers. Every kudos, comment and bookmark I’ve ever received has kept me going. If you’re a writer, you know just how much it means to know that when you write, _people listen to you_ , even if it’s just a few. It’s an incredible feeling of empowerment.

I don’t know how many people follow John’s Apartment now, or how many will read it in the future. But even if it’s only like, six people, those six people have helped me get this far and I have no choice but to thank them for it. 

So, I’ve babbled on long enough. What’s the future for me and John’s Apartment?

I might put myself to illustrating select scenes from the story, and embedding those images within the text. I’ve also thought a lot about going back to edit, for purpose of learning how to revise. If I ever do that though--I won’t touch the original work. It’ll be posted separately, and I'll link back to it. That’s a long way-aways, though. 

As for me? I’ll post short stories on AO3 from time to time, but I’ll mostly stick to original work from here on out. No more fanfiction novels from me. I don’t see this as such a bad thing. John’s Apartment has taught me so much about writing, so I’m ready to apply that to my own stuff. 

Who knows, though? I mean if we're gonna be real, JA happened by accident. Maybe later on, I’ll be tangled up in another 50K fanfic, and you can bet I’ll be laughing at myself like I am now when I think about how this was supposed to be just another little short story.

Have a great 6/12, everyone; I’m off to go buy myself a pizza.  
~Ebby

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all feedback on this story is greatly appreciated!!


End file.
